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Freeman [soylentnews.org] writes:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/12/nasas-asteroid-mission-struck-its-target-but-then-dodged-a-bullet/ [arstechnica.com]

On September 24 [arstechnica.com], the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft released the canister containing the asteroid samples to plunge into the Earth's atmosphere, while the mothership steered onto a course to take it safely back into deep space for a follow-up mission to explore a different asteroid at the end of the 2020s.

Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx's principal investigator from the University of Arizona, was a passenger in a US military helicopter circling the capsule's landing zone in the Utah desert.
[...]
For those watching NASA's live video coverage of the OSIRIS-REx mission's return to Earth, there were hints that something was amiss. Video imagery from a NASA tracking airplane showed the capsule tumbling toward the ground at high speed, well after the point when the drogue parachute should have been visible.
[...]
The last time NASA tried to bring extraterrestrial samples back to Earth, the parachute never opened.
[...]
"We’re tumbling. We are in a subsonic regime, and we are not stabilized," Lauretta said. "There’s no drogue chute deployed here. Problem! So I was like trying to mentally prepare myself, because we’re on live TV, to get off this helicopter and deal with a crashed capsule in the desert."

Then, Lauretta heard confirmation from the Air Force that the OSIRIS-REx return capsule had unfurled its main parachute.

"I was like, 'What? How is that possible?'" he said.
[...]
"The first signal was supposed to fire the mortar and release the drogue," Lauretta said. "The second signal was supposed to cut the cable to release the main... It looks like the first signal cut the (cable), and then the second signal fired the mortar, so it went backwards. But it worked. We had lots of margin on that main chute. It landed safely—a beautiful pinpoint landing in the Utah desert.”
[...]
"In the design plans for the system, the word 'main' was used inconsistently between the device that sends the electric signals, and the device that receives the signals," NASA said in a written statement. "On the signal side, 'main' meant the main parachute. In contrast, on the receiver side 'main' was used as a reference to a pyrotechnic that fires to release the parachute canister cover and deploy the drogue.

"Engineers connected the two mains, causing the parachute deployment actions to occur out of order," NASA said.

Original Submission