Heather Enos
OSIRIS-REx Project Planning &
Control Officer
Catherine Merrill
OCAMS Lead Systems Engineer/
Deputy Instrument Manager
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA – NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER – LOCKHEED MARTIN
HOW DO WE DEFINE THE EXPECTATIONS?
Fundamental Questions
Science Objectives
Mission Implementation
Map the asteroid
Document the sample site and
obtain the sample
Return the sample and analyze
Ground-truth observations
Refine orbital deviations
HOW WILL WE GET THERE?
It’s a small but mighty spacecraft!
SPACECRAFT FAST FACTS
•2 meters (6.6 feet) per side
•8.5 m2 (91 square feet) of solar
panels
•5 Instruments
• Measurements in x-ray, visible
and infrared
• Laser measurements
•Touch-and-Go Sampler
•Sample Return Capsule
WHAT DO THE INSTRUMENTS DO?
WHAT IS OSIRIS-REX?
• Origins
 Return and analyze a sample of pristine
carbonaceous asteroid regolith
• Spectral Interpretation
 Provide ground truth for telescopic data
of the entire asteroid population
• Resource Identification
 Map the chemistry and mineralogy of a
primitive carbonaceous asteroid
• Security

Measure the Yarkovsky effect on a
potentially hazardous asteroid
• Regolith Explorer
 Document the regolith at the sampling
site at scales down to the sub-cm
BENNU’S JOURNEY
OSIRIS-REX MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES
• Building the Right Team
• Maintaining a healthy and happy team
• Establishing Communication and Guiding Principals
• Risk Assessment
 Heritage Assessment
 Maturity Assessment
• Development and Management of Baseline Plan
 Analog comparisons and Independent Cost Estimates
• Reserve Assessment and Allocation
 Lessons Learned – Critical events and Staffing
Required
 Technical Readiness Level Assessments
PUTTING IT TOGETHER – THE MISSION
• Building a Team
• Government Partners
• Academic Partners
• Industrial Partners
• Foreign Partners
• Challenges
• Managing Cultural Differences
• Communicating Across Demographic Boundaries
• Risk Management
• Continuous resource management
• Dollars
• Schedule
• People
• Long timeline
• Maintaining corporate knowledge
• Training the next generation
IT TAKES A BIG TEAM!
Starring
a multi-generational
team led by
Principal Investigator
Dante Lauretta
Lunar and Planetary Lab
University of Arizona
Co-starring
Goddard Space Flight Center
Lockheed Martin
With
researchers around the country
and around the world
Produced by
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
(NASA)
AVOIDING PITFALLS
RISKS ACTIVELY MANAGED AT MULTIPLE LEVELS
14 YEARS FROM START
TO FINISH… AND BEYOND
Challenges
• Maintaining Corporate Knowledge
• Sustaining Team Morale During Difficult Milestones
• Including the Public in the Journey and Maintaining Interest
OSIRIS-REX DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
• The OSIRIS-REx mission required the team to develop
several new instruments, as well as solve mission
navigation problems.
 OCAMS – Developed by the University of Arizona
specifically for the mission; it is a suite of cameras and
a common redundant electronics unit that is responsible
for mission critical imaging.
 TAGSAM – Developed by LMSSC, this mechanism will
deploy from the spacecraft, collect the sample, and
stow the sample for return to Earth
 Navigation – Guidance to the asteroid, establishment of
orbits around the asteroid that provides coverage and
by-passes any satellites, and then the precision guiding
of the spacecraft to the sample site.
INTRODUCTION TO OCAMS
MANAGEMENT STUDY: OCAMS DEVELOPMENT
• Personnel:
 OCAMS team was pulled from those across the
University and from outside entities.
 Various cultures pulled together to support a 3.5 year
project.
• Hardware:
 OCAMS was listed as a TRL 5 component of the
mission at the Concept Study Report.
 OCAMS had to design and build prototype hardware to
achieve TRL 6 by PDR (12 months after System
Requirements Review)
 Qualification Hardware build, tested, and analyzed by
CDR (14 months after PDR)
 Flight Hardware Delivery – 16 Months after CDR.
MANAGEMENT STUDY: OCAMS DEVELOPMENT
• Team Development:
 Identification of Roles and Responsibilities for all
parties/partners
 Strategically filling positions
 Keeping the team working together
OCAMS TEAM DEVELOPMENT
• OCAMS Culture Development
 Communication structure and tools
 Daily meetings
 Processes and procedure
COMMUNICATION ACROSS BOUNDARIES:
MATURATION TO TRL 6
• OCAMS team had to specificity identify the
technologies that were less than TRL6.
 Heritage story for all parts of the OCAMS design was
required; Identification of why specific items were not
TRL6
 Detector and Read Out Electronics, Mechanisms
 Development and Communication of the criteria by
which the hardware will be matured
 What environments are needed? Are those defined to
create a design and test?
 Develop specific tests that mature the hardware and
verify all the criteria that was agreed upon across the
program.
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
• OCAMS developed a test program that was very flexible, but
this required adding facets and hardware to manage the
unknown.
• Human Resources: Limited team to perform the work:
• One build team for three cameras
• One performance test team for three cameras
• Dynamic and thermal analysts support build and work on all three
cameras
• Lab Resources:
• Cameras were built and tested concurrent with or in advance of flight
electronics, forcing lab versions of hardware to be developed, tested
and maintained
• Test equipment to be used for multiple cameras
• Created a staggered schedule, but events can force us to change priorities
• PER – SamCam versus MapCam
OCAMS test program managed resources and reduced schedule risk
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: OCAMS TEST
PROGRAM
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: OCAMS HARDWARE
MATRIX
21
OCAMS RISK PROCESS
Do we
mitigate?
Watch? Do
we need
resources?
What is the
criteria/meth
od to reduce
the risk?
Determine
Path
forward
Identify
the risk
From the
OCAMS
perspective…
• What is the
concern?
• Why is it a
concern?
Assess the Risk
What is the likelihood and consequence to OCAMS?
RISK MANAGEMENT STUDY
• Technical Risk – OCAMS maturity can impact the ability to deliver on
time:
• Technology maturation unit built and tested before PDR
• Full Engineering Qualification hardware built and tested to qualification levels
as a gate to CDR
• Establishment of environmental requirements and parameters early in
program.
• Development of Test program accelerated to support EQM testing.
• Test procedures, equipment and personnel established early in the program
• Schedule Risk – OCAMS has a small team to deliver a mission critical
piece of hardware
• Established a verification and validation program that increased efficiencies in
•
•
•
•
the testing process – “failing faster”
Requirements structured with verification program in mind
Developed additional test equipment and resources to minimize bottlenecks
Accelerated the fabrication of hardware to minimize risk that work was
performed concurrently
Establishment of processes and procedures to ensure swift communication
and specific expectations of the team.
SUMMARY
• Build an implementation plan that has full buy in by all
partners
• Establish realistic risk assessment and resource posture
• Do not plan a “success oriented” program
• You will have anomalies and challenges
• Build the right team
• Identify the necessary capabilities and expertise required for
success
• Manage expectations
• Continuous and transparent communications
• Set aside “institutional cultures” establish a “project culture”
• Acknowledge successes as frequently as failures and
mistakes
• Maintains team morale
Backup Slides
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA – NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER – LOCKHEED MARTIN
AN OSIRIS-REX FIRST: MEASURING A
PLANETARY MASS USING RADAR AND
INFRARED ASTRONOMY
• The three precise series of radar ranging position
measurements over two synodic periods allows us
to measure the Yarkovsky acceleration
• The asteroid has deviated from its gravity-ruled
orbit by 160 kilometers in just 12 years
• This result, when combined with the thermal inertia
and the shape model, constrains the mass to 6.278
(-0.942/+1.883) x 1010 kg
MISSION TIMELINE
• Selection: May 25, 2011
• Preliminary Design Review (PDR): March, 2013
• Critical Design Review (CDR): April, 2014
• System Integration Review (ATLO): February, 2015
• Launch: September, 2016
• Earth Gravity Assist (EGA): September, 2017
• Asteroid Arrival (AA): August, 2018
• Asteroid Departure (Dep): March, 2021
• Sample Return: September, 2023
• End of Mission (Sample Analysis – SA): September, 2025
OUR PAYLOAD PERFORMS EXTENSIVE
CHARACTERIZATION AT GLOBAL AND SAMPLE-SITESPECIFIC SCALES
OCAMS
(UA)
SamCam images the sample site, documents sample acquisition, and images
TAGSAM to evaluate sampling success
MapCam provides landmark-tracking OpNav, performs filter
photometry, maps the surface, and images the sample site
PolyCam acquires Bennu from >500K-km range, performs star-field OpNav, and
performs high-resolution imaging of the surface
OLA (CSA) provides ranging data out to 7 km and maps the asteroid shape
and surface topography
SPACECRAFT-BASED REMOTE SENSING PROVIDES
GROUND TRUTH FOR OUR ASTRONOMICAL DATA
OVIRS (GSFC) maps the reflectance albedo and spectral
properties from 0.4 – 4.3 µm
OTES (ASU) maps the thermal flux and spectral
properties from 4 – 50 µm
Radio Science (CU)
reveals the mass, gravity
field, internal structure, and surface acceleration
distribution
REXIS (MIT)
surface
maps the elemental abundances of the asteroid
OUR DESIGN REFERENCE MISSION PROVIDES
SUBSTANTIAL OPERATIONAL MARGIN