27.06.2023
NASA prepares for return of asteroid sample with September landing in Utah
As NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flies by Earth, it will deliver a sample from the asteroid Bennu. After blasting through Earth’s atmosphere scientists will collect the capsule from the landing site about 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
This set of images shows the asteroid Bennu rotating for one full revolution. Over a 4-hour and 11-minute period on Nov. 2, the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft acquired a 2.5-millisecond image for every 10 degrees of the asteroid’s rotation. (Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
(NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
This set of images shows the asteroid Bennu rotating for one full revolution. Over a 4-hour and 11-minute period on Nov. 2, the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft acquired a 2.5-millisecond image for every 10 degrees of the asteroid’s rotation. (Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
(NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
NASA’s first spacecraft to collect a sample from an asteroid will complete its 7-year mission later this year when OSIRIS-REx drops off some of asteroid Bennu in Utah.
OSIRIS-REx – a fancy acronym for Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer – collected an estimated 2 pounds of asteroid rocks and dirt known as regolith in 2020.
Before the spacecraft used its pogo-stick-like arm to vacuum up regolith, it first took two years of spaceflight to catch up with the asteroid and then orbited the small world, mapping its surface.
In September, OSIRIS-REx will deploy a small capsule with Bennu dirt inside, setting it on a trajectory for Earth. The capsule will hopefully land on Sept. 24 with the help of a parachute in Utah.
The landing zone is within a 250-square-mile area at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The remote area near the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground was founded after the Pearl Harbor attack.
As the sample return date nears, the team has been rehearsing procedures to collect and protect the sample from contaminants. In August, a helicopter will drop a replica of the return capsule in the middle of the landing zone about the size of Rhode Island. The OSIRIS-REx mission team will use tracking cameras and radar to practice recovery operations during this dress rehearsal.
What happens to the asteroid sample?
Captured on Oct. 20 during the OSIRIS-REx mission’s Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event, this series of 2 images shows the SamCam imager’s field of view at the moment before and after the NASA spacecraft touched down on asteroid Bennu’s surface. The sampling event brought the spacecraft all the way down to sample site Nightingale, and the team on Earth received confirmation of successful touchdown at 6:08 pm EDT. (Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)
When the real thing happens, the capsule will be collected with every effort to maintain a pristine sample and won't be opened until it's brought to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Lockheed Martin built and operates the spacecraft for NASA and is responsible for the capsule recovery.
On opening day, a Lockheed employee will have the honor of opening the capsule lid.
Asteroids are essentially fossils of our solar system, and scientists believe Bennu contains material that may date back to the formation of our solar system. The sample will be analyzed to learn more about how we got here and how Earth could deflect a potentially-hazardous asteroid like Bennu when that becomes necessary.
NASA will also share some of the sample with JAXA, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. Japan became the first nation to collect a sample from an asteroid.
More than 13 years ago, JAXA's Hayabusa spacecraft collected a sample from asteroid Itokawa and then two years ago, Hayabusa collected and returned a sample from another asteroid called Ryugu.
What will OSIRIS-REx do after the asteroid sample is returned?
NASA asteroid spacecraft gets a second mission
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft got approved for a second mission to study asteroid Apophis when it makes a close flyby of Earth in 2029.
After the drop-off, OSIRIS-Rex will begin a new mission to study near-Earth asteroid Apophis. On the next leg of its journey, the spacecraft will be called OSIRIS-APEX with a new principal investigator, University of Arizona planetary science professor Daniella DellaGiustina.
Instead of chasing down an asteroid and collecting a sample, this time, OSIRIS-APEX will wait for its subject. Asteroid Apophis is set to make a close flyby of Earth in 2029, close enough to see it with the naked eye.
EVERYTHING SCIENTISTS WOULD WANT TO KNOW IF AN ASTEROID WAS HEADING TOWARD EARTH
The OSIRIS-Rex mission holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the smallest object orbited, but Apophis is smaller than asteroid Bennu. It will be a new challenge in spacecraft navigation.
Quelle:FOX
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Update: 30.06.2023
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NASA Offers Media Interviews in Utah on Asteroid Sample Return
NASA invites media to the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground about 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 20, before the agency’s first asteroid sample collected in space is returned to Earth.
The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission, and will arrive via parachute to the Utah desert on Sept. 24.
Media will have the opportunity July 20 to interview the researchers who provided essential technology that helped OSIRIS-REx capture and store the Bennu sample, as well as learn why NASA selected the Utah desert as the mission’s landing site.
The mission team also will discuss OSIRIS-REx’s landing and recovery operations. Activities for media include a clean room facility tour and viewing the sample return capsule training model.
The event is open to U.S. media, who must register online by 5 p.m. MDT on Friday, July 7, for consideration to participate. Check-in at Dugway Proving Ground will be at 8 a.m. on the day of the event.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university 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’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA’s (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.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 2.07.2023
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'No do-overs': NASA team preps for return of historic asteroid mission
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is coming to a close this September. Scientists are currently rehearsing plans for receiving the capsule upon its return.
Seven years after launch and a historic mission to gather a sample from the surface of an ancient asteroid named Bennu, the OSIRIS-REx mission will be coming to an end in a few months.
If all goes to plan, the OSIRIS-REx capsule will touch down in the Utah desert on September 24.
Before that happens, teams have been rehearsing how they will recover the capsule carrying its precious cargo and safely deliver it to a lab at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
For two days this week, Scripps News had a chance to watch the recovery rehearsals up close at the Littleton, Colorado campus of Lockheed Martin,where OSIRIS-REx was built.
OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta with the University of Arizona says the cargo on board is a scientific bonanza, potentially revealing secrets about the formation of our solar system, and maybe how life began here on Earth.
"I've been poring over origin-of-life research. I do believe we have some new ideas. We have some key tests, and we are going to at least move the needle on this problem," said Lauretta.
Before the capsule lands, Lockheed Martin OSIRIS-REx Mission Operations Manager Sandy Freund says there is a lot of work to do.
"To be this close is really exciting," said Freund. "Now as we get into the Earth return phase, it's targeting the spacecraft towards earth, making sure we've got everything just right, releasing the sample return capsule."
In a sunny field on the Lockheed Martin campus, about a dozen team members rehearsed the procedures for approaching, securing, and moving the OSIRIS-REx capsule, taking care to ensure the sample inside isn't contaminated.
"There are no do-overs," said NASA OSIRIS-REx project scientist Jason Dworkin. "We need to be ready to get the sample, to get the sample and make sure that we preserve it as efficiently and quickly as possible."
Next, the mock sample container was taken to a specialized clean room that will also be set up in Utah in September.
"We start to take away the parts that aren't relevant for science. Inside there is a canister," said Lauretta. "That canister is ultimately going to end up in the clean room at Johnson Space Center."
From there, the sample will be divided up and portions sent to scientists and laboratories around the world. First, however, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has to deliver the sample safely to Earth.
"I always use the metaphor of a quarterback throwing that perfect spiral into the end zone," said Lauretta.
Scoring that touchdown will finally allow scientists to examine part of an asteroid that is billions of years old, something they hope may even help solve a few ancient mysteries.
After being a part of the OSIRIS-REx mission for nearly two decades, Lauretta is thinking a lot about the upcoming landing.
"I think it's going to be a great relief. Now I get to go into the lab with my students, and we just get to be scientists again. And that is going to be like vacation," he laughed.
Quelle: SCRIPPS NEWS
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Update: 10.07.2023
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Practicing the Game-Winning Asteroid Sample Catch
The capsule looked like something from a 1960s sci-fi flick. Resting on the ground, slightly tilted, its white heat shield flaked off in places, it looked how one would expect after speeding in from outer space and streaking across the sky like a shooting star. Despite its appearance, the mini-fridge-sized object had, in fact, never left the surface of Earth.
Instead, it was a replica of the sample capsule mounted on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which has been cruising through space since it departed asteroid Bennu in May 2021 with an estimated half-pound of pristine asteroid material aboard. For training purposes, engineers placed the replica capsule on a field on the Lockheed Martin campus near Littleton, Colorado, where the spacecraft was built.
OSIRIS-REx team members from NASA, Lockheed Martin, and the University of Arizona had gathered in Littleton on June 27 and 28 to rehearse recovering the capsule. The real one will land on the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24.
“We’re literally on a playground here,” said mission Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta, a professor of planetary sciences at University of Arizona in Tucson. “We have room to mess up and practice for the real thing.”
For the June exercise, the recovery team members took their positions next to wooden stakes that represented the four helicopters that will fly them to the capsule landing site.
Picking up a container that dropped from the sky via parachute, bearing 4.5-billion-year-old material collected from an asteroid, is a big deal. The Bennu sample contains primitive material, which could include organic compounds that are found in all Earth life. This material may provide insight into a time when the Sun and planets were born in the swirling cloud of gas and dust that became the solar system. A major goal of the OSIRIS-REx mission is to understand the evolution of organic molecules through solar system history.
Such pristine asteroid material is precious to researchers because it has been shielded from Earth’s environment, unlike meteorites that fall to the ground and are collected on the surface. So the team in Colorado practiced taking samples from the environment around the capsule to create a library of everything it could get exposed to – soil, air, organic matter and so on.
Documenting the environmental conditions around the capsule will be critical for science, Lauretta said: “That way, if we find something that looks fundamental to the origin of life, we’ll have no doubt, and should be able to rule it out as a contaminant because of that documented history.”
Before any team members could approach the capsule to collect environmental evidence, Vicki Thiem, a safety engineer with Lockheed Martin, rehearsed taking its temperature, which she’ll do on Sept. 24 to ensure the capsule has cooled down from its fiery descent through the atmosphere.
Next, the safety team practiced inspecting the area around the capsule for potential hazards, such as gases that might be emanating from it. Once the capsule was secured, Lauretta and his team inspected the terrain, planting little red flags into the ground to demarcate a “keep-out zone” where they needed to collect samples.
Once the capsule was ready for transport, two people lifted the 100-pound (45-kilogram) replica into a metal crate and wrapped it in multiple sheets of Teflon and a tarp. Next, they wrapped the crate in a harness that was secured to a cable that, in real life, will be attached to a helicopter and flown to a clean room set up in a hangar where the capsule will be opened and the sample canister extracted. The day after the sample lands on Earth, the canister and capsule will be flown to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston where the sample will be cared for, stored, and distributed to global scientists.
The OSIRIS-REx team has two rehearsals left, each with increasingly realistic conditions, at the Utah military training range where the capsule will land this fall.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 31.08.2023
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NASA discussing September arrival of OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample: Watch live today
The OSIRIS-REx press event begins today (Aug. 30) at 5 p.m. ET.
NASA will discuss the impending arrival of the asteroid sample collected by its OSIRIS-REx probe during a press conference today (Aug. 30), and you can watch it live.
That sample — about 8.8 ounces (250 grams) of dirt and gravel snagged from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in October 2020 — is scheduled to land in the U.S. Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24.
NASA will preview the highly anticipated event today, during a 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) press conference held at the Utah site. You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the agency.
Recovery teams participate in field rehearsals in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, Tuesday, July 18, 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 and will return to Earth on September 24th, landing under parachute at the Utah Test and Training Range. (Image credit: NASA/Keegan Barber)
Participating in today's OSIRIS-REx press conference are:
- Melissa Morris, OSIRIS-REx program executive, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator, University of Arizona, Tucson
- Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
- Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager, Lockheed Martin, Littleton, Colorado
- Kevin Righter, OSIRIS-REx deputy curation lead, NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston
These folks are in Utah already for a very good reason: They're practicing for the big day.
"During the week of Aug. 30, the OSIRIS-REx mission team is testing their landing and recovery plans with the goal of reducing the time to safely retrieve the sample capsule from the desert floor and transport it to a clean room on base, protecting the rocks and dust collected from the surface of Bennu from earthly contaminants," NASA officials wrote in a blog post.
OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016, kicking off an ambitious mission to explore Bennu, a potentially hazardous asteroid about 1,650 feet (500 meters) wide.
The mission's full name reveals the breadth of its goals and tasks: "Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer." The "origins" part, for example, refers to Bennu's status as a primitive, carbon-rich asteroid, the type that may have seeded Earth with the building blocks of life long ago through impacts. Scientists will hunt for signs of these building blocks — carbon-containing organic molecules — in OSIRIS-REx's sample, once it's down on the ground.
And "security" is a nod to Bennu's potentially hazardous nature: Learning more about this space rock could inform our efforts to deflect a dangerous asteroidaway from Earth, which, experts stress, we'll need to do at some point in the future.
OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu in early December 2018, then slipped into orbitaround the space rock four weeks later.
Bennu is the smallest object ever orbited by a spacecraft. And OSIRIS-REx set another record during its visit as well: It performed the closest-ever orbit of a small body, skimming just 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) above the asteroid's rubbly surface.
OSIRIS-REx took the space rock's measure from orbit for nearly two years. Then, in October 2020, it dove down for an epic sample grab — and nearly got swallowed up by the surprisingly spongy Bennu in the process.
But OSIRIS-REx survived its encounter. The probe departed Bennu in May 2021and began the long journey back toward Earth. While its sample capsule will touch down here next month, the probe itself will keep on flying; it will head toward a second potentially dangerous asteroid, the notorious Apophis, arriving at the space rock in 2029.
OSIRIS-REx will study Apophis up close, gathering yet more data that could teach us about the solar system's formation and evolution — and, potentially, help us defend our planet down the road.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 1.09.2023
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NASA Completes Last OSIRIS-REx Test Before Asteroid Sample Delivery
A team led by NASA in Utah’s West Desert is in the final stages of preparing for the arrival of the first U.S. asteroid sample – slated to land on Earth in September.
A mockup of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) sample capsule was dropped Wednesday from an aircraft and landed at the drop zone at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range in the desert outside Salt Lake City. This was part of the mission’s final major test prior to arrival of the actual capsule on Sept. 24 with its sample of asteroid Bennu, collected in space almost three years ago.
“We are now mere weeks away from receiving a piece of solar system history on Earth, and this successful drop test ensures we’re ready,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Pristine material from asteroid Bennu will help shed light on the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and perhaps even on how life on Earth began.”
This drop test follows a series of earlier rehearsals – capsule recovery, spacecraft engineering operations, and sample curation procedures – conducted earlier this spring and summer.
Now, with less than four weeks until the spacecraft’s arrival, the OSIRIS-REx team is nearing the end of rehearsals and ready for the actual delivery.
"I am immensely proud of the efforts our team has poured into this endeavor,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “Just as our meticulous planning and rehearsal prepared us to collect a sample from Bennu, we have honed our skills for sample recovery.”
The capsule is carrying an estimated 8.8 ounces of rocky material collected from the surface of the asteroid Bennu in 2020. Researchers will study the sample in the coming years to learn about how our planet and solar system formed, as well as the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth.
The capsule will enter Earth’s atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. EDT (8:42 a.m. MDT), traveling about 27,650 mph. NASA’s live coverage of the capsule landing starts at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. MDT), and will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.
“We are now in the final leg of this seven-year journey, and it feels very much like the last few miles of a marathon, with a confluence of emotions like pride and joy coexisting with a determined focus to complete the race well,” said Rich Burns, project manager for OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Once located and packaged for travel, the capsule will be flown to a temporary clean room on the military range, where it will undergo initial processing and disassembly in preparation for its journey by aircraft to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the sample will be documented, cared for, and distributed for analysis to scientists worldwide.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university 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’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (the Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with 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.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 4.09.2023
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NASA completes last OSIRIS-REx test before asteroid sample delivery
A training model of the sample return capsule is seen is seen during a drop test in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and will return to Earth on September 24th, landing under parachute at the Utah Test and Training Range. Credits: NASA/Keegan Barber
A team led by NASA in Utah's West Desert is in the final stages of preparing for the arrival of the first U.S. asteroid sample - slated to land on Earth in September. A mockup of NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) sample capsule was dropped Wednesday from an aircraft and landed at the drop zone at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range in the desert outside Salt Lake City. This was part of the mission's final major test prior to arrival of the actual capsule on Sept. 24 with its sample of asteroid Bennu, collected in space almost three years ago.
"We are now mere weeks away from receiving a piece of solar system history on Earth, and this successful drop test ensures we're ready," said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Pristine material from asteroid Bennu will help shed light on the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and perhaps even on how life on Earth began."
This drop test follows a series of earlier rehearsals - capsule recovery, spacecraft engineering operations, and sample curation procedures - conducted earlier this spring and summer. Now, with less than four weeks until the spacecraft's arrival, the OSIRIS-REx team is nearing the end of rehearsals and ready for the actual delivery.
"I am immensely proud of the efforts our team has poured into this endeavor," said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "Just as our meticulous planning and rehearsal prepared us to collect a sample from Bennu, we have honed our skills for sample recovery."
The capsule is carrying an estimated 8.8 ounces of rocky material collected from the surface of the asteroid Bennu in 2020. Researchers will study the sample in the coming years to learn about how our planet and solar system formed, as well as the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth.
The capsule will enter Earth's atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. EDT (8:42 a.m. MDT), traveling about 27,650 mph. NASA's live coverage of the capsule landing starts at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. MDT), and will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency's website.
"We are now in the final leg of this seven-year journey, and it feels very much like the last few miles of a marathon, with a confluence of emotions like pride and joy coexisting with a determined focus to complete the race well," said Rich Burns, project manager for OSIRIS-REx at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Once located and packaged for travel, the capsule will be flown to a temporary clean room on the military range, where it will undergo initial processing and disassembly in preparation for its journey by aircraft to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the sample will be documented, cared for, and distributed for analysis to scientists worldwide.
Quelle: SD
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Update: 15.09.2023
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Teams Watch Weather as OSIRIS-REx Prepares to Return Asteroid Sample
This September, after traveling billions of miles through our solar system, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will cruise past Earth with an extraordinary delivery. As it passes, it will release a mini-fridge size capsule containing a sample of primordial space rock collected from an asteroid located between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
OSIRIS-REx — the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer — is the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid. Scientists hope the pristine material it collected from asteroid Bennu in 2020 — about half a pound of rubble and dust from the asteroid’s surface — will provide a window into 4.5 billion years ago when the Sun and planets were forming.
Before it can do that, the sample’s protective capsule will withstand temperatures twice as hot as lava, and the second-fastest velocity ever achieved by a human-made object entering Earth’s atmosphere. After entering Earth’s atmosphere at around 36 times the speed of sound, the capsule may eventually encounter wind, rain, and other weather conditions as it drops closer to the surface. Regardless of weather, it will land in the Great Salt Lake Desert, an arid landscape known for its scorching summer temperatures and its salt flats, the remnants of an ancient lakebed where crusty salt deposits coat the ground.
While much of the focus will be on the technical aspects of the spacecraft and the landing capsule, a team of scientists and meteorologists will also be closely monitoring the weather, which can significantly affect recovery of the capsule.
“Before we launched seven years ago, the capsule had to be designed for all the weather conditions we thought were reasonable for Utah in September,” said Eric Queen, a research engineer with the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
While the hardy capsule was built to be impervious to things like lightning and ice, “winds are probably our biggest concern any time you land under parachute,” said Mark Johnson, who leads the EDL analysis for Lockheed Martin, in Littleton, Colorado. That’s because wind speed and direction could affect where the capsule sets down within a 36-mile by 8.5-mile (58-km by 14-km) target in the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City.
The landing range is considered a “safe, controlled area,” said Kenneth Getzandanner, OSIRIS-REx flight dynamics lead. “It was also the landing site for the Stardust mission, so there is heritage.”
Like Goopy Cement
The OSIRIS-REx team also thought a lot about conditions on the ground itself. Late summer is monsoon season in the desert, so heavy rains could saturate the silty ground. Wet-cement-like mud would make driving difficult if off-road vehicles are required to help helicopters find and transport the capsule.
“We should know by the end of monsoon season how much precipitation we’ve received and the condition of the salt flats,” said Eric Nelson, a U.S. Army meteorologist supporting the mission. “A good indicator is Bonneville Speed Week, an annual racing event in August.” Since it went off without a hitch, “we’re probably okay.”
In support of the OSIRIS-REx mission, the team will deploy weather balloons in the days leading up to the landing. The single-use balloons soar to altitudes around 60,000 feet, or 18,288 meters — about twice as high as a commercial jet flies. Rising 18 feet (5.5 m) per second, they transmit data on temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind before bursting high up in the atmosphere. The mission will use these observations to estimate a likely landing location on the range.
How the Delivery Will Unfold
The last leg of the capsule’s long journey will begin when it separates from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and then enters Earth’s atmosphere above the West Coast about four hours later. Traveling at hypersonic speeds, the roughly 100-pound (45 kg) capsule will rely on a protective entry system that includes a heat shield made of a lightweight ablative material invented at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and designed to withstand extreme temperatures.
Radar and infrared tracking systems will follow the capsule during descent. As it streaks eastward on the morning of Sept. 24, several aircraft, including a high-altitude WB-57 research plane from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will track its journey with visual and thermal imaging systems.
The capsule will be traveling at around 1,150 mph (1,850 kph) when it deploys its drogue parachute over the training range. A round, main parachute will open closer to the ground to soften the landing. Unlike other designs, the round shape is less likely to be caught by a breeze, increasing drag and stability as the capsule descends. This reduces its chance of being blown off course, which could make it harder to find on the ground.
Once it touches down and is recovered by a specialized team, the sample will be moved to a special laboratory at Johnson, where it will be preserved and studied. The historic landing will be studied, too, in order to inform future space deliveries.
“We are not forecasting anything that we don't usually forecast, but there are going to be a lot of eyes on our little corner of the desert this fall,” Nelson noted. “That’s a bit more pressure than usual.”
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 21.09.2023
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OSIRIS-REx asteroid probe makes final maneuver before Sept. 24 sample delivery
OSIRIS-REx conducted one last trajectory-correcting engine burn on Sunday (Sept. 17).
NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe performed one last trajectory-correcting maneuver on Sunday (Sept. 17) to set up the Sept. 24 arrival of its asteroid sample here on Earth.
OSIRIS-REx fired its thrusters briefly on Sunday, changing the probe's velocity by 7 inches (17.8 centimeters) per minute, NASA said.
"This final correction maneuver moved the sample capsule's predicted landing location east by nearly 8 miles, or 12.5 kilometers, to the center of its predetermined landing zone inside a 36-mile by 8.5-mile (58-kilometer by 14-kilometer) area on the Defense Department's Utah Test and Training Range," agency officials wrote in an update today (Sept. 19).
Sunday's engine burn was a tweak of a crucial Sept. 10 maneuver that set OSIRIS-REx on the proper course for capsule release on Sept. 24, which will take place about 63,000 miles (102,000 km) above Earth, NASA officials added. The probe is currently about 1.8 million miles (2.8 million km) from our planet, heading toward us at roughly 14,000 mph (23,000 kph).
The $1 billion OSIRIS-REx mission launched in September 2016 and headed toward Bennu, a 1,650-foot-wide (500 meters) potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid.
OSIRIS-REx reached the space rock in December 2018, then studied it from orbit for nearly two years. On Oct. 20, 2020, the probe swooped down and snagged about 8.8 ounces (250 grams) of material from Bennu's surprisingly spongy surface.
This precious cargo is about to come to Earth inside OSIRIS-REx's return capsule, which is scheduled to touch down in Utah shortly before 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on Sunday. You can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.
This graphic shows the Earth return trajectory for the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and for the sample capsule, after the spacecraft releases it above Earth on Sept. 24. The yellow diamonds indicate the dates of spacecraft maneuvers that slightly adjust its trajectory to get it closer, and then pointing at, and then above Earth. (Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)
After touchdown, OSIRIS-REx's sample will make its way to NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, where the material will be curated and stored.
JSC will eventually send some of the asteroid dirt and gravel to scientists around the world, who will study it for clues about the early days of the solar system and the role that carbon-rich asteroids like Bennu may have played in life's emergence on Earth. Researchers think that such space rocks seeded our planet with organics, the carbon-containing building blocks of life, via long-ago impacts.
The main OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will keep on flying after its return capsule comes down to Earth. The probe will head toward another potentially hazardous asteroid, the notorious Apophis, on an extended mission called OSIRIS-APEX. The probe will reach Apophis in 2029.
Quelle: SC