In a first for NASA, the OSIRIS-REx mission is delivering pristine pieces of the asteroid Bennu that may contain clues about the origin of life.
. That is NASA’s acronym for what is more fully known as the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer. Even more complicated than the name is the aerospace feat that OSIRIS-REx has attempted. This is NASA’s first try at scooping up a sample of an asteroid, and it has turned out to be surprisingly tricky.
But the fundamental goal is science, not planetary preservation. This type of asteroid — very old — contains molecules that date The mission, which is led by NASA’s Goddard, has managed to overcome a number of serious technical challenges since the spacecraft was launched in 2016. One of the most difficult problems was getting the spacecraft into orbit aroundGravity is remarkably subtle as fundamental forces of the universe go, and the gravitational attraction of this asteroid was almost immeasurably feeble. It wasn’t much different from the force applied by solar radiation hitting the spacecraft’s solar panels.
The process of releasing the capsule will spin it in a way that will stabilize its motion — akin to a quarterback throwing a tight spiral. The parent spacecraft will fire thrusters to change its trajectory and ensure that it does not plunge to Earth.The capsule, meanwhile, will spend four hours approaching Earth — no navigation involved, just Newtonian physics at work — and then will enter the atmosphere at more than 27,000 mph. A heat shield will keep it from burning up.
The capsule, bagged in three layers of plastic, will be hauled on a 100-foot line by helicopter to a hangar where a “clean room” awaits — a sterilized space that limits the odds of contamination. Then it will be flown to a clean facility at NASA Johnson for what will probably be many years of research.
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