SCIFLI’s mission is to collect visual infrared and spectral data on spaceflight
vehicles, including the Osiris-rex sample return capsule on its return to Earth.
This gives engineers and scientists unique insight
into our most challenging questions about hypersonic fluid dynamics
by providing data critical to flight safety systems.
The scientifically calibrated in-flight imagery team uses ground based sensors
and instruments flying on various aircraft to image asteroid sample returns.
Launch abort systems.
Parachute tests, rocket launches and capsule returns,
including Artemis 1, on both launch and reentry.
The data we capture provides engineers with information on vehicle performance
relative to what computational tools and wind tunnel testing.
It takes extensive planning to get it right.
Upon its return to the asteroid belt, the Osiris-rex capsule will be traveling
at 12 kilometers per second, or about 27,000 miles per hour.
That's nearly twice as fast as objects coming back to low-Earth orbit,
and it will be among
the four fastest human made objects ever to fly in Earth's atmosphere.
In partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency,
Rocket Technologies International and universities in Australia and Germany,
SCIFLI is coordinating three ground stations and four aircraft to collect data
on the sample return capsule, factory heat shield performance
and the plasma environment surrounding the capsule.
As it speaks to the surface, all of which will help
NASA understand its performance and help future planetary entry missions succeed.