Benchmarking Cylindrical Blast Wave Theory Against the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule ReentryOPEN ACCESS
Elizabeth A. Silber
Accepted for publication on 12 May 2026 in Pure and Applied Geophysics
“Weak shock theory based on cylindrical blast waves has been used to interpret meteor infrasound, but it has not been systematically benchmarked against a non-ablating hypersonic source with independently known parameters. The objective of this study is not to propose a new theoretical framework, but to evaluate the operational validity of the existing suite of blast radius formulations against a high-fidelity ground truth dataset. The OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule reentry on 24 September 2023 provides such a benchmark because the capsule geometry, trajectory, and infrasound emission points are constrained from mission data and ray tracing, reducing source-side uncertainty associated with ablation. Using observations from 39 infrasound stations, this benchmarking study evaluates six published blast radius (R_0) formulations and three weak-shock transition coefficients (C) within a stratified atmospheric propagation model to predict signal period and peak overpressure. The benchmarking identifies the Sakurai formulation as the best-performing formulation for non-ablating bodies, with the Jones/Plooster formulation performing comparably when a physically appropriate C is adopted. Sakurai and Jones/Plooster yield linear-period median absolute percentage residuals of 9% and 11%, respectively. The period predictions show only weak sensitivity to C at these propagation distances. The Mach-diameter approximation commonly used in meteor studies overestimates R_0 by more than a factor of 3 in the absence of ablation. These results establish a performance baseline for applying cylindrical blast wave theory to non-ablating hypersonic bodies and demonstrate that the signal period is a robust observable for constraining R_0. “
