Sep 18, 2017

Last week, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft maintained nominal operations as it continued on a trajectory toward Earth for its scheduled Sept. 22 Earth Gravity Assist (EGA). On Sept. 14, the spacecraft’s communications downlink rate increased to 300 kbps from 200 kbps as the spacecraft’s distance to Earth continues to shrink.  The spacecraft is currently communicating through its low gain antenna (LGA).

As of Sept. 18, the spacecraft is 2.6 million km from Earth and its one-way light time is around 9 seconds.