NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Successfully Touches Asteroid, Grabs Sample

[essentialsaltes]

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft unfurled its robotic arm Tuesday, and in a first for the agency, briefly touched an asteroid to collect dust and pebbles from the surface for delivery to Earth in 2023.

This well-preserved, ancient asteroid, known as Bennu, is currently more than 200 million miles (321 million kilometers) from Earth. Bennu offers scientists a window into the early solar system as it was first taking shape billions of years ago and flinging ingredients that could have helped seed life on Earth. If Tuesday’s sample collection event, known as “Touch-And-Go” (TAG), provided enough of a sample, mission teams will command the spacecraft to begin stowing the precious primordial cargo to begin its journey back to Earth in March 2021. Otherwise, they will prepare for another attempt in January.

OSIRIS-REx launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Sept. 8, 2016.

Thanks, Obama!

 

[Strathos]

Hope it doesn't bring back a new pandemic.

 

[Ophiolite]

OSIRIS-REx launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Sept. 8, 2016.

I think it is always worth reflecting upon the remarkable reliability of the hardware that allows this machine to operate in a hostile environment, with precision, for close to a decade. Vacuum, wide ranging temperature variations, cosmic rays, solar wind, micrometeorites, not to mention the occassional engineer who might use Imperial units when Metric was expected.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft unfurled its robotic arm Tuesday, and in a first for the agency, briefly touched an asteroid to collect dust and pebbles from the surface for delivery to Earth in 2023.

This well-preserved, ancient asteroid, known as Bennu, is currently more than 200 million miles (321 million kilometers) from Earth. Bennu offers scientists a window into the early solar system as it was first taking shape billions of years ago and flinging ingredients that could have helped seed life on Earth. If Tuesday’s sample collection event, known as “Touch-And-Go” (TAG), provided enough of a sample, mission teams will command the spacecraft to begin stowing the precious primordial cargo to begin its journey back to Earth in March 2021. Otherwise, they will prepare for another attempt in January.

OSIRIS-REx launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Sept. 8, 2016.

Thanks, Obama!

I watched the Osiris TAG live-ish - i.e. as the data came in - last night (around 11:15pm UK time) - a remarkably delicate precision operation, where the craft approached very slowly while autonomously evaluating the sample area for hazards (lot's of big rocks around), then gently touched the surface to take the sample before backing off to cool down, recharge, and assess the sample. Amazing.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

The video was wild. "Gently touched" is probably not an accurate description. There was an explosion of material and it left a crater, lol. I suppose it was gentle relatively speaking.

The precision is just unreal though. Awesome job!

 

[durangodawood]

Is anyone concerned that this craft is named for a false demon-god?

 

[public hermit]

Is anyone concerned that this craft is named for a false demon-god?

I wasn't, but now I'm not.

 

[durangodawood]

Sometimes its hard to take seriously that there's anything out there at all.

I mean, WE are so important that why would there even need to be anything else beyond our firmament, let alone trillions of other galaxies. Makes no sense at all. Not buying it. Its totally fair, my demand that the universe make sense to me.

 

[durangodawood]

Also, I should mention I spent 3 moonless nights last weekend camping in the darkest skies in the continental USA. The "milky way" was stunning. Best night skies I've ever seen.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Also, I should mention I spent 3 moonless nights last weekend camping in the darkest skies in the continental USA. The "milky way" was stunning. Best night skies I've ever seen.

You're extremely lucky; it's a privilege very few get these days.

 

[John Done]

Osiris-Rex launched in 2016 and will travel back to Earth next March. It is estimated that he will return home in 2023.

 

[essentialsaltes]

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft unfurled its robotic arm Tuesday, and in a first for the agency, briefly touched an asteroid to collect dust and pebbles from the surface for delivery to Earth in 2023.

NASA Spacecraft Will Visit Apophis, Once Earth’s Deadliest Asteroid Threat
After delivering extraterrestrial samples to Earth in 2023, OSIRIS-REx will embark on an extended mission to a potentially planet-threatening space rock

Apophis’s close approach could offer more than celestial eye candy. Scientists have eagerly proposed possible missions to rendezvous with the object on or around its passage in 2029. Now at least one visitor from our planet has been confirmed: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, initially launched in 2016 on a mission to collect samples from another asteroid, Bennu, and bring them back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx is currently on its way home from its successful encounter with Bennu, and it is scheduled to drop off its invaluable samples in September 2023. The spacecraft will continue flying through space, however, leading NASA to approve a $200-million extension to the mission. OSIRIS-REx will now rendezvous with Apophis, becoming OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS–Apophis Explorer) in the process. “It’s really exciting,” says Daniella DellaGiustina of the University of Arizona, who will lead OSIRIS-APEX’s investigations. “This will be a phenomenal step forward” in our understanding of Apophis.

OSIRIS-APEX will sidle up to Apophis a couple of months after the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, performing initial reconnaissance before entering orbit around the object in August 2029. Mapping the surface, mission scientists will look for any interesting changes elicited by Apophis’s brief plunge through our planet’s gravitational grip. “The tidal forces could cause small landslides and expose some fresh material,” says Mike Nolan of the University of Arizona, who is science team lead of OSIRIS-REx. “It could be reshaped.”

Is anyone concerned that this craft is named for a false demon-god?

"The asteroid would come to be called Apophis, after the Egyptian god of destruction."

Now we'll have one Egyptian god meeting another. In Space!

 

[SkyWriting]

NASA Spacecraft Will Visit Apophis, Once Earth’s Deadliest Asteroid Threat
After delivering extraterrestrial samples to Earth in 2023, OSIRIS-REx will embark on an extended mission to a potentially planet-threatening space rock

Apophis’s close approach could offer more than celestial eye candy. Scientists have eagerly proposed possible missions to rendezvous with the object on or around its passage in 2029. Now at least one visitor from our planet has been confirmed: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, initially launched in 2016 on a mission to collect samples from another asteroid...

People who don't study movies, are doomed to repeat them.

The Andromeda Strain (film)
A team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space']extraterrestrial origin - returned on a space probe. [/URL]

 

[AV1611VET]

Tag!

You're it!

 

[essentialsaltes]

NASA Spacecraft Will Visit Apophis, Once Earth’s Deadliest Asteroid Threat
After delivering extraterrestrial samples to Earth in 2023, OSIRIS-REx will embark on an extended mission to a potentially planet-threatening space rock

An asteroid will just miss us in 2029. Scientists are making the most of a rare opportunity​

To be clear: The asteroid is not going to hit us.

At its nearest, Apophis will pass roughly 19,000 miles (31,000 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. That’s about one-10th the distance to the moon.

On the big night, Apophis will be visible with the naked eye from parts of Europe and Africa.

OSIRIS-REx, a spacecraft currently ferrying home samples from the surface of an asteroid called Bennu, will rendezvous with Apophis in 2029. Shortly after April 13, the craft — by then renamed OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer, or OSIRIS-APEX — will steer toward the asteroid until it is drawn into its orbit, eventually getting close enough to collect a sample from its surface.

2029 used to seem like a long way away.

 

[Estrid]

Hope it doesn't bring back a new pandemic.

As if

 

[Estrid]

You're extremely lucky; it's a privilege very few get these days.

Seriously. Try to see even the moon,
living in Hong Kong!
I spent three weeks at a ranch in Wyoming,
USA. High altitude, clear sky. I was in
total amazement. I thought something was
wrong with the sky (milky way

In all I spent hours gazing at the sky.
Found a little fuzzy patch ( Andromeda!).
I wanted to build it right into my mind,
thinking, correctly so far, that I'd never
see such a sky again.




.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Seriously. Try to see even the moon,
living in Hong Kong!
I spent three weeks at a ranch in Wyoming,
USA. High altitude, clear sky. I was in
total amazement. I thought something was
wrong with the sky (milky way

In all I spent hours gazing at the sky.
Found a little fuzzy patch ( Andromeda!).
I wanted to build it right into my mind,
thinking, correctly so far, that I'd never
see such a sky again.

I read recently that when the power went out in LA a while back, people rang 911 and the local observatory to report a band of light across the sky...

 

[Estrid]

I read recently that when the power went out in LA a while back, people rang 911 and the local observatory to report a band of light across the sky...

Kind of pathetic isnt it?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Kind of pathetic isnt it?

In a sad sort of way - society, technology, and education have let them down.