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Two days after landing on the asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission team received images on Thursday, October 22, confirming that the spacecraft has collected more than enough material to meet one of the main requirements of its mission: acquire at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of the material from the asteroid’s surface.
The spacecraft captured images of the sample collection head as it moved through several different positions. Reviewing these images, the OSIRIS-REx team noted that the head appeared to be filled with asteroid particles and that some of these particles appeared to be slowly escaping from the sample collector, called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM). ) head. They suspect fragments of material pass through small gaps where a mylar flap, the “lid” of the collector, is slightly opened by larger rocks.
“Bennu continues to surprise us with great science and also some curveballs,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science at the agency’s Washington headquarters. “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.”
The team believes it has collected a sufficient sample and is on its way to store the sample as quickly as possible. They reached this conclusion after comparing images of the empty collection head with October 22 images of the TAGSAM head after the sample collection event.
The images also show that any movement towards the spacecraft and the TAGSAM instrument can lead to further loss of sample. To preserve the remaining material, the mission team decided to forego the Sample Mass Measurement activity originally scheduled for Saturday, October 24, and canceled a braking operation scheduled for Friday to minimize any acceleration of the spacecraft.
From here, the OSIRIS-Rex team will focus on storing the sample in the Sample Return Capsule (SRC), where any loose material will be kept safe during the spacecraft’s journey back to Earth.
“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, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who He leads the science team and the planning of the mission’s scientific observation and data processing. “The loss of mass worries me, so I strongly encourage the team to save this precious sample as soon as possible.”
The head of TAGSAM carried out the sampling event under optimal conditions. New analysis available shows that the collector head was flush with Bennu’s surface when it made contact and when the nitrogen gas bottle was fired to agitate the surface material. It also penetrated several centimeters into the material on the asteroid’s surface. All the data so far suggest that the collector head contains much more than 2 ounces of regolith.
OSIRIS-REx remains in good health and the mission team is finalizing a schedule for sample storage. An update will be provided once a decision is made on sample storage time and procedures.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides general mission management, systems engineering, and mission and safety assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace of Tempe, Arizona, are responsible for the navigation of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. 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.
For more information, see: https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex
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