Geophysical Observations of the 24 September 2023 OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule Re-Entry
Creators: name: Silber, Elizabeth A.
name: Bowman, Daniel C.
name: Carr, Chris G.
name: Eisenberg, David P.
name: Elbing, Brian R.
name: Fernando, Benjamin
name: Garcés, Milton A.
name: Haaser, Robert
name: Krishnamoorthy, Siddharth
name: Langston, Charles A.
name: Nishikawa, Yasuhiro
name: Webster, Jeremy
name: Anderson, Jacob F.
name: Arrowsmith, Stephen
name: Bazargan, Sonia
name: Beardslee, Luke
name: Beck, Brant
name: Bishop, Jordan W.
name: Blom, Philip
name: Bracht, Grant
name: Chichester, David L.
name: Christe, Anthony
name: Clarke, Jacob
name: Cummins, Kenneth
name: Cutts, James
name: Danielson, Lisa
name: Donahue, Carly
name: Eack, Kenneth
name: Fleigle, Michael
name: Fox, Douglas
name: Goel, Ashish
name: Green, David
name: Hasumi, Yuta
name: Hayward, Chris
name: Hicks, Dan
name: Hix, Jay
name: Horton, Stephen
name: Hough, Emalee
name: Huber, David P.
name: Hunt, Madeline A.
name: Inman, Jennifer
name: Islam, S. M. Ariful
name: Izraelevitz, Jacob
name: Jacob, Jamey D.
name: Johnson, James
name: KC, Real J.
name: Komjathy, Attila
name: Lam, Eric
name: LaPierre, Justin
name: Lewis, Kevin
name: Lewis, Richard D.
name: Liu, Patrick
name: Martire, Léo
name: McCleary, Meaghan
name: McGhee, Elisa A.
name: Mitra, Ipsita
name: Nag, Amitabh
name: Giraldo, Luis Ocampo
name: Pearson, Karen
name: Plaisir, Mathieu
name: Popenhagen, Sarah K.
name: Rassoul, Hamid
name: Giannone, Miro Ronac
name: Samnani, Mirza
name: Schmerr, Nicholas
name: Spillman, Kate
name: Srinivas, Girish
name: Takazawa, Samuel K.
name: Tempert, Alex
name: Turley, Reagan
name: Van Beek, Cory
name: Viens, Loïc
name: Walsh, Owen A.
name: Weinstein, Nathan
name: White, Robert
name: Williams, Brian
name: Wilson, Trevor C.
name: Wyckoff, Shirin
name: Yamamoto, Masa-yuki
name: Yap, Zachary
name: Yoshiyama, Tyler
name: Zeiler, Cleat
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Sample Return Capsules (SRCs) entering Earth's atmosphere at hypervelocity from interplanetary space are a valuable resource for studying meteor phenomena. The 24 September 2023 arrival of the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) SRC provided an unprecedented chance for geophysical observations of a well-characterized source with known parameters, including timing and trajectory. A collaborative effort involving researchers from 16 institutions executed a carefully planned geophysical observational campaign at strategically chosen locations, deploying over 400 ground-based sensors encompassing infrasound, seismic, distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), and GPS technologies. Additionally, balloons equipped with infrasound sensors were launched to capture signals at higher altitudes. This campaign (the largest of its kind so far) yielded a wealth of invaluable data anticipated to fuel scientific inquiry for years to come. The success of the observational campaign is evidenced by the near-universal detection of signals across instruments, both proximal and distal. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the collective scientific effort, field deployment, and preliminary findings. The early findings have the potential to inform future space missions and terrestrial campaigns, contributing to our understanding of meteoroid interactions with planetary atmospheres. Furthermore, the dataset collected during this campaign will improve entry and propagation models as well as augment the study of atmospheric dynamics and shock phenomena generated by meteoroids and similar sources.
description: 87 pages, 14 figures