In the coming week, the engineers and scientists of the mission will try to estimate the size of the collected sample, and if it is smaller than the target of 60 grams, another contact attempt will be made in January
The Osiris Rex spacecraft deployed its robotic arm on Tuesday, briefly touching down on the ground of an asteroid for the first time in NASA history to collect dust and possibly small rocks from the surface to bring back to Earth in 2023.
The ancient asteroid in us, which was well preserved in its original configuration, is now more than 320 million km from the Earth. Asteroid Beno offers scientists a window into the early solar system as it first took shape billions of years ago and may even discover whether asteroids could indeed seed life on Earth.
If Tuesday's sample collection event, known as a Touch and Go (TAG), provided a large enough sample, mission teams will instruct the spacecraft to begin storing the precious cargo and begin its journey back to Earth in March 2021. Otherwise, they will prepare for another attempt in January 2021.
At 13:50 EST (20:00 Israel time) Osiris-Rex activated its maneuvering engines to descend from the altitude at which it orbited Beno, and opened the sampling arm, first the shoulder then the elbow and finally the wrist of the sampling arm known as TAGSAM which 3.35 meters, and approached Benno while descending to a height of about 800 meters above the surface. After that, the spacecraft continued to descend for four hours and at a height of about 125 meters, the spacecraft performed the first of two maneuvers that allow it to precisely hit the sample collection site, known as "Nightingale".
Ten minutes later, the spacecraft fired its maneuvering engines for a second burn to slow its descent and match its speed to the speed of the asteroid's rotation on its axis at the time of contact. She then proceeded towards a rock the size of a two-story building, known as "Mount Doom", to touch the planned site of the crater in his son's northern hemisphere. The crater, which is about the size of a small parking lot, is one of the relatively obvious places on the rocky asteroid.
The source of water on Earth
"This was an amazing achievement – and today we advanced both the science and engineering and our chances of future exploration of these mysterious ancient 'storytellers' of the solar system," said Thomas Zorbuchen, associate director of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters. in Washington. who added: "A piece of primordial rock that has witnessed the entire history of our solar system may now come home to generations of scientific discovery."
"After more than a decade of planning, the team is delighted with the success of today's sampling attempt," said Dante Loretta, principal investigator of the Osiris Rex spacecraft at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "Although we have work ahead of us to determine the mass of samples collected."
All of the spacecraft's telemetry data indicates that the TAG operation went according to plan. However, it will take the Osiris Rex crew about a week to know the size of the sample collected.”
Real-time data indicates that the TAGSAM arm has successfully touched the surface and fired a burst of nitrogen gas. The gas should have caused dust and rock to rise above Benno's surface, some of which should have been captured by the top of the TAGSAM samples. Mission engineers also confirmed that shortly after the spacecraft made contact with the surface, it fired its maneuvering engines and drifted safely away.
"Today's TAG maneuver was historic," said Laurie Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The fact that we safely and successfully touched down on the surface of our son, in addition to all the other milestones this mission has already achieved, is a testament to the spirit of research that continues to reveal the secrets of the solar system."
However, already today, October 21, it will be possible to estimate the size of the sample by photographing the disturbance caused by the gas jet on the asteroid's ground. This is in addition to the sensors on the arm itself.
The goal of the scientists is to obtain a sample of at least 60 grams.
However, if it turns out that the spacecraft did not collect a large enough sample at Nightingale, it will attempt another TAG maneuver on January 12, 2021. If that happens, the spacecraft will land at the backup site called "Osprey," which is another rock-free area inside a crater near the equator of they built.
For information on the NASA website
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Asteroid Bennu - interim summary before Osiris Rex collects a sample from it and returns it to DHA
- The Osiris-Rex spacecraft passed near Earth on its way to collect a sample from a nearby asteroid
- Considerable amounts of water were discovered in the Bennu asteroid, did the asteroids bring the water to Earth?
4 תגובות
Because it takes several months to produce the films that NASA will soon distribute as proof that it really happened... directors, lighting, models of a spaceship and his son. Not easy... especially with the corona virus. A few months at least.
I imagine that the picture at the top of the article is just an illustration and not a real picture, right?
Why is the comment I sent yesterday not published?
Will we see photos or video of the mission even before the spacecraft returns here in 2023? So far I have only seen computer simulations, wasn't the spacecraft equipped with cameras? Didn't she take a picture of the process?
And another question, if it is necessary to take another sample, why will it only be in two months? After all, the spacecraft is already there, why does it take two whole months to take another sample? What is the delay about?
I will be happy to answer.