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OSIRIS-REx collects samples from the asteroid Bennu.
NASA scientists confirmed Wednesday that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made successful contact with an asteroid a day earlier, touched the surface for six seconds, and collected dust and pebbles from its surface.
The spacecraft’s performance on the asteroid Bennu, which is as wide as the Empire State Building is tall, was remarkable. Because the asteroid is so small, its gravity is negligible, complicating the spacecraft’s orbital maneuvers around what is, essentially, a pile of debris.
Despite these challenges, at a distance of 320 million kilometers Tuesday, NASA engineers and scientists programmed a spacecraft to land autonomously within one meter of its target area.
Newly released images of the encounter show the spacecraft’s sampling arm moving toward the asteroid at a speed of 10 cm per second and crushing the rocks below it when it reaches the surface.
“We literally crushed it,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission. “When the spacecraft made contact, that rock seemed to fragment and break apart, which is great news.” This is because the “head” of the sampling arm can only collect material less than 2 cm in diameter.
