System Design and Preliminary Analysis of the University of Queensland Spectroscopy Data From the OSIRIS-REx Re-Entry Observation Mission

Remote re-entry observation missions are an important way to study the phenomena experienced during high-speed re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. This paper reports on the system design and preliminary analysis of the University of Queensland’s spectroscopy data taken during the re-entry observation mission of NASA's OSIRIS-REx capsule which re-entered over Salt Lake City, Utah at 14:42 UTC on the 24th of September 2023. As this was 8:42 in the morning local time, this necessitated the design of unique spectroscopy systems designed to reject as much of the bright sky background as possible. This involved restricting the field of view and spectral range of the spectroscopy systems, which resulted in systems which were physically much larger than the spectroscopy systems normally used on re-entry observation missions. This paper discusses solutions to this challenge, documents the whole-of-system design, and presents preliminary spectroscopy data. Data analysis is still ongoing.