NASA to save 75% of asteroid samples to study with future tech

NASA has announced it will set aside 75% of the samples from asteroid Bennu for future generations to study with future tech.

NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission – Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) – will begin a two-year cruise back to Earth at 4 p.m. EDT on May 10. In addition to announcing it will broadcast the mission, the space agency invited the press and the general public to ask questions about the mission by writing a comment on a NASA Solar System Instagram story between 12 p.m. EDT, May 10 and 12 p.m. EDT, May 11.

The OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bannu in 2018. It has been operating on the asteroid for nearly two and half years. One of the firsts the mission has achieved is breaking its own record for the closest orbit of a planetary body by a spacecraft. A manmade spacecraft had never orbited a smaller celestial object.

“OSIRIS-REx will bring back the largest sample collected by a NASA mission since the Apollo astronauts returned with Moon rocks,” said NASA in a press release it sent out. “Scientists plan to analyze the sample to learn about the formation of our solar system and the development of Earth as a habitable planet.”

After recovering the capsule, NASA will transport it to its Johnson Space Center curation facility in Houston. The scientists at the facility will remove the sample and distribute it to laboratories all over the world.

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The OSIRIS-REx control room, which is located at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, will receive a confirmation at around 4:16 p.m. EDT that the spacecraft fired its main thrusters to push away from the orbit of asteroid Bennu, nearly 16 minutes after it occurred. Following 7 minutes of firing its thrusters, the spacecraft will officially begin its long journey back to Earth with over 2.1 ounces, or 60 grams, of asteroid samples.

The departure sequence is the most significant maneuver of the mission since the arrival at the asteroid.

“The spacecraft’s thrusters must change its velocity by 595 miles per hour (958 kilometers per hour) for OSIRIS-REx’s path to intersect Earth and achieve a successful sample return at the Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24, 2023,” said NASA in the news release we also received. “There is no straight path back to Earth. Like a quarterback throwing a long pass to where a receiver will be in the future, OSIRIS-REx is traveling to where the Earth will be. The spacecraft will circle the Sun twice, covering 1.4 billion miles (2.3 billion kilometers) over to catch up with Earth.”

Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research discovered Bennu in September 1999 during a Near-Earth asteroid survey.