NASAs OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight
NASAs OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is travelling back to Earth with a sample it collected from the rocky surface of asteroid Bennu. When its sample pill parachutes down into the Utah desert on September 24, OSIRIS-REx will end up being the United States first-ever objective to return an asteroid sample to Earth.
After 7 years in space, including a nail-biting touchdown on Bennu to collect dust and rocks, this brave mission is about to face one of its most significant difficulties yet: provide the asteroid sample to Earth while safeguarding it from heat, vibrations, and earthly impurities.
” Once the sample capsule touches down, our team will be racing versus the clock to recuperate it and get it to the security of a temporary tidy room,” said Mike Moreau, deputy job manager at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
NASAs OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is travelling back to Earth with a sample it collected from the rocky surface of asteroid Bennu. When its sample pill parachutes down into the Utah desert on Sept. 24, OSIRIS-REx will end up being the United States first-ever objective to return an asteroid sample to Earth. Members of the sample science group are preparing the investigations they will perform with the sample product once received.
These samples will help identify if any minute contaminants got in touch with the asteroid sample.
Sample curation, consisting of processing upon Earth arrival, will happen at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASAs OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is travelling back to Earth with a sample it gathered from the rocky surface of asteroid Bennu. When its sample pill parachutes down into the Utah desert on Sept. 24, OSIRIS-REx will become the United States first-ever mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight
Over the next 6 months, the OSIRIS-REx group will practice and refine the procedures needed to recuperate the sample in Utah and carry it to a brand-new lab developed for the material at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, researchers will unload the sample, distribute up to a quarter of it to the OSIRIS-REx science group around the globe for analysis, and curate the rest for other researchers to study, now and in future generations.
At Johnson Space Center, the curation group is practicing their treatment to process the sample and unpack inside glove boxes. Members of the sample science group are preparing the investigations they will perform with the sample product when received.
The Bennu asteroid sample capsule from NASAs OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will parachute down into the Utah desert on September 24, 2023. Credit: NASA
” The OSIRIS-REx team has already performed incredible accomplishments defining and sampling asteroid Bennu,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal detective from the University of Arizona, Tucson. “These achievements are the direct outcome of the comprehensive training and rehearsals that we performed every action of the method. We are bringing that level of discipline and commitment to this final phase of the flight operations.”
Asteroids are the ancient materials left over from the original period of world development and may contain molecular precursors to life. Scientists have actually found out a lot from studying asteroid fragments that have naturally reached the ground as meteorites. However to comprehend whether asteroids contributed in delivering these compounds to Earths surface over 4 billion years ago, researchers need a beautiful sample from space, devoid of terrestrial contaminants.
In addition, the most delicate rocks observed on Bennu most likely would not have made it through passage through Earths environment as meteorites. “There are two things pervasive on Earth: water and biology,” stated Dr. Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx task researcher at NASA Goddard. “Both can seriously change meteorites when they land on the ground and muddle the story informed by the samples chemistry and mineralogy. A pristine sample could supply insights into the advancement of solar system.”
The curation group will be among the very first to see and handle the sample OSIRIS-REx is returning from asteroid Bennu. They are also responsible for distributing the sample and saving to science team members around the world.
On Sept. 24, as the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft zips Earth, it will release its sample return pill, thus ending its main objective. The capsule, which is estimated to hold about a cup of Bennus material– 8.8 ounces +/- 3.6 ounces (250 grams +/- 101 grams) to be precise– will land within a 37-mile by 9-mile ellipse (59 km by 15 km) within Department of Defense home 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 NASAs Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, are utilizing computer designs to evaluate navigation plans in different weather condition, solar activity, and area debris situations to make sure that when the pill gets in Earths environment at 10:41 a.m. ET (8:41 a.m. MT), it will touch down inside the targeted location 13 minutes later.
Healing teams are accountable for protecting the sample return capsules landing website and helicoptering it to a portable tidy space located at the range. Furthermore, crews will collect soil and air samples all around the landing pill. If any minute impurities called the asteroid sample, these samples will help identify.
When the pill is inside the structure with the portable tidy space, members of the group will get rid of the heat guard, back shell, and other components to prepare the sample cylinder for transport to Houston.
The go back to Earth of samples from asteroid Bennu will be the conclusion of a more than 12-year effort by NASA and its objective partners however marks the beginning of a new stage of discovery as scientists from around the globe will turn their attention to the analysis of this distinct and valuable material dating from the early formation of our planetary system.
Test curation, consisting of processing upon Earth arrival, will happen at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston. International collaborations include the Canadian Space Agencys OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument and a partnership with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agencys Hayabusa2 objective for asteroid sample science. OSIRIS-REx is the 3rd mission in NASAs New Frontiers Program, which is handled by NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama on behalf of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.