Osiris Rex will say goodbye to Benno on one last ride

Madrid 26 single. (Europe Press) –

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will bid farewell to asteroid Benno on May 10 with a final flight And a precious shipment of samples will arrive on Earth in September 2023.

During the sample collection event on October 20, 2020, the spacecraft collected a large amount of material from the Bennu surface, probably Exceeds the 60-gram job requirement.

Leave the vicinity of Pino in May Puts us in the “sweet spot”When the exit maneuver consumes the least fuel on board the spacecraft. It is a statement Michael Morrow is deputy project director for OSIRIS-REx at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “However, with speed changing at a rate of more than 265 meters per second, this will be the largest propulsion maneuver by OSIRIS-REx (Assets, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) since approaching Bennu in October 2018.”

May’s departure also provides OSIRIS-REx the opportunity to plan a final flight of the Bennu spacecraft. This activity was not part of the original task schedule, But the team is studying the feasibility of conducting a final monitoring of the asteroid to see how the spacecraft’s contact with the Bennu surface changed the sample’s location..

Yes, it is possible. The flight will take place in early April and you will notice the site form, Called the Nightingale, from a distance of about 3.2 kilometers). The Bennu surface changed dramatically after the Touch-and-Go (TAG) sampling event, as the collector’s head sank 48.8 cm into the asteroid’s surface. The spacecraft thrusts also disturbed a large amount of surface material as the recoil combusted.

The mission plans to fly one-time, to imitate one of the observation sequences conducted during the detailed reconnaissance phase of the mission in 2019. Osiris Rex will photograph Bennu in full rotation to obtain high-resolution images of the northern and southern hemispheres and the asteroid’s equatorial region.

Then, The team will compare these new images with previous high-resolution Pino images obtained during 2019.

“Osiris Rex has really done incredible science,” said Lori Glaze, NASA’s director of planetary science at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “We are very excited that the mission is planning another observational aerial flight of asteroid Benno to provide new information about how the asteroid will respond to TAG bye.”

The potential mission has been extended

Post-TAG observations will also give the team a chance to assess the current function of scientific instruments on board the spacecraft. Dust may cover the tools during a sample collection event and the mission wants to assess the condition of each. Understand the health of the tools, too It is part of the team’s assessment of potential extended mission opportunities after the sample is delivered to the ground.

The spacecraft will remain near the asteroid Bennu until May 10, when the mission enters its cruise stage back to Earth. As it approaches Earth, the Osiris Rex will drop the Sample Return Capsule (SRC). The SRC will then travel through Earth’s atmosphere and land under a parachute at the Test and Training Field in Utah.

Once cured, NASA will transport the capsule to the conservation facility at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and distribute the sample to laboratories around the world. Which will allow scientists to study the formation of our solar system and Earth as a habitable planet.