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The spacecraft’s sampling arm, called the Touch-And-Go Sampling Mechanism, over the target sampling site during a dress test in April.
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From NASA asteroid hunter Osiris-Rex It completed a key part of its mission this week by catching some rocks from the surface of the potentially dangerous asteroid Bennu, NASA reported Friday.
The spacecraft traveled more than 200 million miles and four years to briefly collide with Bennu, bombard it with compressed gas, and collect fragments from its surface. The space agency on Wednesday shared the first batch of images from the daring operation, revealing a delicate but explosive moment between the rock and the robot.
When the ship’s robotic sampling arm, called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or Tagsam, landed on Bennu, it performed what amounts to a cosmic pickpocket maneuver. Mission planners expected the total contact time between the arm and the asteroid to be less than 16 seconds. When the preliminary data were released, they showed that the contact period was only six seconds, and that much of the sample collection was done only in the first three.
The spacecraft, operating largely autonomously due to the 18-minute communications delay with mission control on Earth, fired a gas canister through Tagsam that breached Bennu’s surface and forced a sample. on the arm harvesting head.
Photos taken of the head Thursday showed that so much sample was collected that some larger rocks seemed unable to reach the interior, wedging a mylar flap intended to seal the partially open container, allowing some small bits of dust and pebbles to settle. see. escape back to space.
Captured by the spacecraft’s SamCam camera on October 22, this series of three images shows that the sampler head on Osiris-Rex is littered with rocks and dust collected from the surface of Bennu. They also show that some of these particles slowly escape from the sampler head.
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“Bennu continues to surprise us with great science and also throwing some curveballs,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate science administrator, in a statement. “And while we may have to move faster to store the sample, it is not a bad problem. We are very excited to see what appears to be a rich sample that will inspire science for decades beyond this historic moment.”
Osiris-Rex was designed to land on a flat, even surface, but Bennu is so rocky that the team couldn’t find a suitable space. Fortunately, Osiris-Rex outperformed his design and was able to sample at a site called Nightingale, which is as large as a few parking spaces.
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NASA successfully lands the Osiris-Rex spacecraft on an asteroid …
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Osiris-Rex marks a rock
As the spacecraft approached and then spent two years orbiting and examining Bennu, it became clear that this little world is different than what scientists expected. The team hoped to find a series of sandy surfaces ideal for sampling, but it turns out that Bennu is a pile of rubble, with rugged terrain strewn with rocks.
Around 24 hours after the operation, NASA shared the first images of the landing operation captured by the spacecraft. The Tagsam is brought into position and its sampling head makes contact with the Bennu surface before the explosive nitrogen blast is triggered. The operation lifts a ton of debris flying around the acquisition arm. It’s really something!
Landing!
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Although the GIF above seems relatively quick, the operation was carried out much more delicately. The arm was lowered at about 10 centimeters per second, much slower than walking, when it made contact with the sample site.
The team’s goal is to collect about 60 grams of dust, dirt and pebbles from the surface of Bennu. He reported Friday that he believes Osiris-Rex collected a sufficient sample and moved to quickly begin storing it, skipping a planned sample mass measurement and canceling a braking combustion to keep the spacecraft’s acceleration to a minimum.
“We are working to keep up with our own success here, and my job is to safely return as large a sample of Bennu as possible,” said Dante Lauretta, Osiris-Rex Principal Investigator at the University of Arizona.
The Osiris-Rex team celebrates at the touchdown.
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Mission joins Hayabusa from Japan and Hayabusa-2 missions in the annals of asteroid exploration. Hayabusa sampled and returned a small amount of material from the Itokawa asteroid, and Hayabusa2 is in the process of returning a significant sample from the Ryugu space rock.
After the sample is stored, the team will begin preparations for a long journey back to Earth, with a planned landing in the Utah desert in September 2023.
