NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission prepares for landing on an asteroid

The samples from Bennu could help researchers understand not only more about asteroids that could influence Earth but also about how planets formed and everyday living started.

Area tag

On Tuesday, the spacecraft labored by its TAG, or Touch-and-Go sequence, which is how it will collect samples from the asteroid.

This rehearsal took about four hours to total as it labored via a few of the 4 maneuvers that will be needed to collect a sample.

Essentially, the spacecraft experienced to carry out burns, or fireplace its thrusters, to get closer to the area of the asteroid’s surface area — leaving its orbit .6 miles away from the asteroid.

Then, it carried out a “Checkpoint” burn up at 410 feet absent. During this maneuver, OSIRIS-Rex can autonomously check out its situation and velocity to see if it demands to make any changes right before it moves closer to the asteroid.

OSIRIS-REx then attained its “Matchpoint” burn off, where by the spacecraft matches the asteroid’s rotation so it can fly previously mentioned the sample internet site.

This set the spacecraft closer than it has at any time been to the asteroid’s surface, at 131 feet away. Through this close come upon, OSIRIS-REx unfolded its Contact-and-Go-Sample Acquisition System, or sampling arm to check it in the configuration it will use in Oct.

Devices on the spacecraft also took a lot more observations for science and navigation applications, which is also section of the sample collection strategy. The new superior-resolution photos these instruments acquired will assistance the spacecraft’s Natural Element Monitoring guidance method concentrate on the small sample selection internet site.

This direction technique lets OSIRIS-REx to use its on-board hazard map and avoid spots that could bring about damage to the spacecraft. The planned trajectory to attain and sample the Nightingale site reveals that a safe landing will be feasible in Oct.

Offered the distance of the spacecraft from Earth, it requires about 16 minutes for a sign despatched from Earth to access OSIRIS-REx. So commands will be despatched forward of time to the spacecraft, as perfectly as a command to begin this sequence, in Oct. The workforce examined this capacity through the rehearsal.

The mission team also utilised this rehearsal as an chance to make certain the spacecraft’s techniques ended up running typically.

“Several important devices were being exercised through this rehearsal — from communications, spacecraft thrusters, and most importantly, the onboard Normal Attribute Monitoring guidance system and hazard map,” said OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta, a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the College of Arizona, in a assertion.

“Now that we have concluded this milestone, we are self-confident in finalizing the procedures for the TAG party. This rehearsal confirmed that the staff and all of the spacecraft’s devices are prepared to obtain a sample in October.”

While significantly of the workforce labored remotely, a limited sum of team members had been on-internet site at Lockheed Martin’s Area facility, NASA’s Goddard Place Flight Center and the College of Arizona and practising wellness and security safety measures amid the ongoing pandemic.

In Oct, the spacecraft will really arrive at the asteroid’s floor and use its sampling arm to touch down for 5 seconds. It will launch a pressurized demand of nitrogen to disturb the area of the asteroid and acquire samples from that product. Then, it will back again away and return the samples to Earth on September 24, 2023.

What we know so significantly

Due to the fact arriving at Bennu in 2018, OSIRIS-REx has unveiled intriguing information about the asteroid.

The mission — which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Useful resource Identification, Stability-Regolith Explorer — released in September 2016.

Bennu is covered in boulders instead than the large places of fine-grain material that researchers predicted.

Bennu is the smallest body to ever be orbited by a spacecraft, just a tiny bit wider than the peak of the Empire Point out Creating, according to NASA. Bennu has a form comparable to that of a spinning top, and it can be a “rubble pile” asteroid, which is a grouping of rocks held alongside one another by gravity somewhat than a solitary object.

OSIRIS-REx’s instruments have verified that hydrated minerals, like magnetite, are abundant and prevalent on the asteroid. The asteroid is complete of valuable resources that might even comprise clues about how life started. Bennu is essentially a leftover from the formation of our solar technique billions of years back.

Bennu probably originated in the key asteroid belt, obtaining broken off of a larger sized asteroid in the belt involving Mars and Jupiter a couple of billion several years back. This knocked it via space until an orbit close to Earth locked it in position.