The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, September 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
NASAEstablished in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is "To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity." Its core values are "safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion." NASA conducts research, develops technology and launches missions to explore and study Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. It also works to advance the state of knowledge in a wide range of scientific fields, including Earth and space science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, and it collaborates with private companies and international partners to achieve its goals.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>NASA’s OSIRIS-RExLaunched in 2016, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will help astronomers investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our understanding of near-Earth asteroids.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>OSIRIS-REx mission achieved success by safely returning a capsule with asteroid Bennu samples to Earth, paving the way for critical scientific research on planetary formation and life’s origins.
After years of anticipation and hard work by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) team, a capsule of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu finally is on Earth. It landed at 8:52 a.m. MDT (10:52 a.m. EDTEDT is an abbreviation for Eastern Daylight Time, the time zone for the eastern coast of the United States and Canada when observing daylight saving time (spring/summer). It is four hours behind Coordinated Universal Time. New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, and the Kennedy Space Center are in the Eastern Time Zone (ET).” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>EDT) on Sunday, in a targeted area of the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City.
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, September 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
Lockheed Martin System Safety Engineer Victoria Thiem, left, and On Scene Commander of Recovery Stuart Wylie, right, perform preliminary checks on the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
Within an hour and a half, the capsule was transported by helicopter to a temporary clean room set up in a hangar on the training range, where it now is connected to a continuous flow of nitrogen.
Getting the sample under a “nitrogen purge,” as scientists call it, was one of the OSIRIS-REx team’s most critical tasks today. Nitrogen is a gas that doesn’t interact with most other chemicals, and a continuous flow of it into the sample container inside the capsule will keep out earthly contaminants to leave the sample pure for scientific analyses.
Lockheed Martin System Safety Engineer Victoria Thiem performs preliminary checks on the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission shortly after the capsule landed. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
The returned samples collected from Bennu will help scientists worldwide make discoveries to better understand planet formation and the origin of organics and water that led to life on Earth, as well as benefit all of humanity by learning more about potentially hazardous asteroids.
From left to right, NASA Astromaterials Curator Francis McCubbin, NASA Sample Return Capsule Science Lead Scott Sandford, and University of Arizona OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta, collect science data shortly after the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission landed. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
“Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team on a picture-perfect mission – the first American asteroid sample return in history – which will deepen our understanding of the origin of our solar system and its formation. Not to mention, Bennu is a potentially hazardous asteroid, and what we learn from the sample will help us better understand the types of asteroids that could come our way,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “With OSIRIS-REx, Psyche launch in a couple of weeks, DART’s one-year anniversary, and Lucy’s first asteroid approach in November, Asteroid Autumn is in full swing. These missions prove once again that NASA does big things. Things that inspire us and unite us. Things that show nothing is beyond our reach when we work together.”
From left to right, NASA Sample Return Capsule Science Lead Scott Sandford, NASA Astromaterials Curator Francis McCubbin, and University of Arizona OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta, collect science data shortly after the sample return capsule landed. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
The Bennu sample – an estimated 8.8 ounces, or 250 grams – will be transported in its unopened canister by aircraft to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday, September 25. Curation scientists there will disassemble the canister, extract and weigh the sample, create an inventory of the rocks and dust, and, over time, distribute pieces of Bennu to scientists worldwide.
Today’s delivery of an asteroid sample – a first for the U.S. – went according to plan thanks to the massive effort of hundreds of people who remotely directed the spacecraft’s journey since it launched on September 8, 2016. The team then guided it to arrival at Bennu on December 3, 2018, through the search for a safe sample-collection site between 2019 and 2020, sample collection on October 20, 2020, and during the return trip home starting on May 10, 2021.
From left to right, Lockheed Martin Mission Operations Assurance Lead Graham Miller, Lockheed Martin Recovery Specialist Michael Kaye, and Lockheed Martin Recovery Specialist Levi Hanish, prepare the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission for transport. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
On Scene Commander of Recovery Jasmine Nakayama attaches the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to a helicopter for transport to the cleanroom. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
“Today marks an extraordinary milestone not just for the OSIRIS-REx team but for science as a whole,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “Successfully delivering samples from Bennu to Earth is a triumph of collaborative ingenuity and a testament to what we can accomplish when we unite with a common purpose. But let’s not forget – while this may feel like the end of an incredible chapter, it’s truly just the beginning of another. We now have the unprecedented opportunity to analyze these samples and delve deeper into the secrets of our solar system.”
On Scene Commander of Recovery Jasmine Nakayama attaches the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to a helicopter for transport to the cleanroom. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
On Scene Commander of Recovery Jasmine Nakayama attaches the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to a helicopter for transport to the cleanroom, Sunday, September 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
After traveling billions of miles to Bennu and back, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft released its sample capsule toward Earth’s atmosphere at 6:42 a.m. EDT (4:42 a.m. MDT). The spacecraft was 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) from Earth’s surface at the time – about one-third the distance from Earth to the Moon.
Traveling at 27,650 mph (44,500 kph), the capsule pierced the atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. EDT (8:42 a.m. MDT), off the coast of California at an altitude of about 83 miles (133 kilometers). Within 10 minutes, it landed on the military range. Along the way, two parachutes successfully deployed to stabilize and slow the capsule down to a gentle 11 mph (18 kph) at touchdown.
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen en route to the cleanroom, Sunday, September 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen en route to the cleanroom, Sunday, September 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
“The whole team had butterflies today, but that’s the focused anticipation of a critical event by a well-prepared team,” said Rich Burns, project manager for OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “For us, this was the World Series, ninth inning, bases-loaded moment, and this team knocked it out of the park.”
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is lowered into the parking lot in front of the cleanroom hangar by helicopter, Sunday, September 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is lowered into the parking lot in front of the cleanroom hangar by helicopter, Sunday, September 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
Radar, infrared, and optical instruments in the air and on the ground tracked the capsule to its landing coordinates inside a 36-mile by 8.5-mile (58-kilometer by 14-kilometer) area on the range. Within several minutes, the recovery team was dispatched to the capsule’s location to inspect and retrieve it. The team found the capsule in good shape at 9:07 a.m. MDT (11:07 a.m. EDT) and then determined it was safe to approach. Within 70 minutes, they wrapped it up for safe transport to a temporary clean room on the range, where it remains under continuous supervision and a nitrogen purge.
Curation teams process the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in a cleanroom, Sunday, September 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
NASA Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. The University of Arizona, Tucson leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation for OSIRIS-REx, including processing the sample when it arrives on Earth, will take place at NASA Johnson. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (the Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXAFormed in 2003, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was born through the merger of three institutions, namely the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL) and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). JAXA performs various activities related to aerospace, from basic research in the aerospace field to development and utilization and is responsible for research, technology development, and launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>JAXA’s (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Source: SciTechDaily
