NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is cruising back to Earth with a sample it collected from the rocky surface of the asteroid Bennu. When its sample capsule plummets to the Utah desert on September 24, OSIRIS-REx will become the first ever United States mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth.
After seven years in space, including a landing on Bennu to collect dust and rock, this intrepid mission is about to face one of its biggest challenges yet: delivering an asteroid sample to Earth while protecting it from heat, vibrations and Earth influences. contaminants.
“Once the sample capsule touches down, our team will race against time to retrieve it and get it to the safety of a temporary clean room,” said Mike Moreau, deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
OSIRIS-REx become the first ever United States mission
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is cruising back to Earth with a sample it collected from the rocky surface of the asteroid Bennu. When its sample capsule plummets to the Utah desert on September 24, OSIRIS-REx will become the first ever United States mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth. Download this video in HD from NASA Goddard’s Scientific
Over the next six months, the OSIRIS-REx team will practice and perfect the procedures needed to retrieve the sample in Utah and transport it to a new laboratory built for the material at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, scientists unpack the sample, sending up to a quarter of it to the OSIRIS-REx science team around the world for analysis, and prepare the rest for other scientists to study now and for generations to come.
Flight dynamics engineers at NASA Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are exploring a trajectory that will bring the spacecraft close to Earth. At Lockheed Martin in Denver, team members track the spacecraft and prepare the group to retrieve the sample capsule.
This summer, crews in Colorado and Utah will practice all the steps to safely retrieve the capsule while protecting it from contamination. At the Johnson Space Center, the curatorial team rehearses their procedure for unpacking and handling a gloved specimen. In the meantime, members of the sample science team are preparing the investigations they will perform on the sample material once it is received.
Asteroids are ancient materials left over from the original era of planet formation and may contain molecular precursors to life. To understand whether asteroids played a role in delivering these compounds to Earth’s surface more than 4 billion years ago, scientists need a pristine sample from space, free of terrestrial contaminants.
Dr. Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA Goddard says “Two things are ubiquitous on Earth: water and biology”.
On September 24, as the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft passes by Earth, it will release its sample return capsule, ending its primary mission. The capsule, which is estimated to hold about a cup of Bennu’s material – 8.8 ounces +/- 3.6 ounces (250 grams +/- 101 grams, to be exact) – will land within a radius of 37 miles by 9 miles (59 km). by 15 km) within Department of Defense property that is part of the Utah Test and Training Range and Dugway Proving Grounds.
OSIRIS-REx team members from NASA Goddard, KinetX, Lockheed Martin, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, are using computer models to test navigation plans under various weather, solar activity, and space debris scenarios to ensure that when the capsule enters Earth’s atmosphere in 10:41 a.m. ET (8:41 a.m. MT), touching down inside the target area 13 minutes later.
Rescue crews are responsible for securing the landing site of the sample return capsule and moving it by helicopter to a portable clean room located on the range. In addition, the crews will take soil and air samples all around the landing capsule. These samples will help identify if any small impurities came into contact with the asteroid sample.
Once the capsule is inside the portable clean room building, team members will remove the heat shield, back jacket and other components to prepare the sample container for transport to Houston.
The return of samples from asteroid Bennu to Earth will be the culmination of more than 12 years of effort by NASA and its mission partners, but it marks the beginning of a new phase of discovery as scientists around the world turn their attention to analysis. of this unique and rare material originating from the early formation of our solar system.
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