This series of images shows a view of the Navigation Camera (NAVCam 2) field during the OSIRIIRIS-Rex mission sample collection event on October 20, 2020. NASA The spacecraft comes close to the surface of the asteroid Bennu, touches and moves forward. The sampling event brought the spacecraft all the way to the sampling site Nightingale, and the team on Earth confirmed a successful touchdown at EDT at 6:08 p.m. Preliminary data show that the sample head touched the surface of Bennu for about 6 seconds, after which the spacecraft back-burned.
These images were captured over a period of about three hours – the imaging sequence begins one hour after the orbital departure maneuver and ends about two minutes after burning from the rear. In the middle of the sequence, the spacecraft breaks down or spins, so that the Navcam 2 looks away from Bennu towards space. OSIRIS-REx Then again point the camera (and sample hand) towards the surface to present the final conclusion.
As the spacecraft site approaches Nightingale, the shadow of the sample hand comes into view at the bottom of the frame. After a while, the sampled head affects the site nightingale (outside the top of the field of view of the camera) and fires a bottle of nitrogen gas, which collects a significant amount of material from the sampling site. After several seconds, the spacecraft burns back-burn and the shadow of the sample hand appears against the material of the interrupted surface.
The team is constantly investigating why extremely dark areas appear in the upper and middle parts of the frame. The upper area may be the edge of the frustration created by the sample hand, with a strong shadow from the surface through the mouth material or some combination of both. Similarly, the medium dark area that appears on the bottom left of the first image may be frustrated by one of the spacecraft thrusters, a shadow by loft material, or a combination of both.
The sequence was created using 189 images taken by the spacecraft’s Navcam 2 camera. Navcam 2 captured images for the spacecraft’s Natural Feature Tracking (NFT) navigation system. The NFT system allowed the spacecraft to navigate the surface of Bennu independently by comparing real-time images with the boardboard image catalog. During the sample collection event, the NavamM2 camera continuously captures Bennu’s surface so that the NFT system can improve the position and speed of Ben’s respective spacecraft as it descends towards the target touchdown point.
The fifth matic (black-and-white) imagers, the Nevac am2 is one of three cameras incorporating the TagCAMS (Touch-and-Go Camera System), part of OSIRIS-Rex’s guidance, navigation and control system. TAGCAMS was designed, built and tested by Malin Space Science Systems; Heid Kahid Martin Space has integrated TAGCAMS into the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and operates TAGCAMS.
