Editor’s note: Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory scientific newsletter. Explore the universe with news about exciting discoveries, scientific advances and more.
CNN
—
An asteroid sample loaded inside a NASA spacecraft is about to reach Earth. Traveling through space for about two and a half years.
It is the first time NASA has collected and brought back an asteroid sample from space.
along with A previously returned sample of asteroid Ryugu Rocks and soil obtained by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission could reveal insights into the beginning of the solar system.
Rather than arriving to land, the OSIRIS-REx mission will drop rock and soil samples and continue its journey to study another asteroid.
The team has been rehearsing how to recover samples originally taken from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu when they fall into the Utah desert on September 24th.
OSIRIS-REx is estimated to have collected up to 8.8 ounces of material from Bennu, or about 1 cup.
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
Bennu is a top-shaped debris pile asteroid made up of rocks held together by gravity. It is about one-third mile (500 meters) wide.
“We are just weeks away from receiving a piece of the history of our solar system on Earth, and this successful drop test confirms that we are ready,” said Nicola Fox, deputy administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. is certain,” he said. “Primitive material from the asteroid Bennu will help us understand the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and perhaps how life on Earth began.”
It’s not every day that a spacecraft releases a capsule carrying a rare asteroid sample into the sky above a planet, with the goal of safely delivering it to a specific landing site.
After years of hard work by thousands of people, the moment a sample of Bennu arrives on Earth has come true.
Throughout the spring and summer, the team practiced retrieving the sample capsule and ran through all the scenarios, both good and bad, that could occur on re-entry day.
Keegan Barber/NASA
The capsule is scheduled to land at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range.
The mission’s original goal was to retrieve a primitive asteroid sample. However, if the capsule lands and opens, the sample can become contaminated.
“We are extremely proud of the effort our team has put into this effort,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona at Tucson, in a statement. “We honed our sample retrieval skills in the same way that careful planning and rehearsal prepared us to collect samples from Bennu.”
OSIRIS-REx, short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, and Regolith Explorer, is NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission. The spacecraft has been traveling for seven years. After launching in 2016, OSIRIS-REx began orbiting Bennu in 2018. Samples collected in 2020 It will then depart in May 2021 for its long return journey to Earth.
Since leaving Bennu, the spacecraft has orbited the sun twice so it can get into the correct orbit to rendezvous with Earth.
In July, the mission team sent a series of operations to help the spacecraft target the capsule’s landing site at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range outside Salt Lake City.
On September 24th, NASA live stream Some of the samples delivered to Earth. The live stream will begin at 10:00 a.m. ET, and the capsule containing the sample will enter Earth’s atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET, traveling at approximately 27,650 miles per hour (44,498 kilometers per hour).
Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said the mission team gave the command to the spacecraft to release the capsule four hours before it entered the atmosphere. He will decide whether to send it or not.
Keegan Barber/NASA
A trained model of the sample return capsule is seen during the drop test. A parachute slows down the capsule’s descent.
This decision is determined by the safety of humans within the landing zone, the ability of the capsule to withstand the angle, the temperature of reentry, and the trajectory of the spacecraft, which determines the accuracy of landing. The capsule will be released when Osiris-Rex heads into an area 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) from Earth and spanning 250 square miles (647.5 square kilometers). This is “equivalent to throwing a dart the length of a basketball court and hitting the ball,” Burns said.
Once the capsule is released, Osiris-Rex will perform a redirection maneuver and target another asteroid into orbit around the sun. ApophisBurns said, heading into the 2029 rendezvous.
Once in Earth’s atmosphere, the capsule will be engulfed in a super-hot fireball, but the vessel’s heat shield will protect the samples inside.
According to OSIRIS-REx’s Sandra Freund, the parachute deployed to slow the capsule to a gentle touchdown at 11 miles per hour (17.7 kilometers per hour) and the recovery team to retrieve the capsule once it was safe. He said he was waiting. Program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, which partnered with NASA to build the spacecraft, provide flight operations, and assist in capsule recovery.
Landing is scheduled for 13 minutes. The capsule plunges into Earth’s atmosphere.
Keegan Barber/NASA
The retrieval team participates in helicopter training to retrieve and transport samples to a temporary clean room.
A helicopter will carry the samples in a cargo net and transport them to a makeshift clean room set up at the firing range in June. There, the team will prepare a sample container for transportation by C-17 aircraft to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on September 25. Details of the sample will be made available to the public through a NASA broadcast from Johnson on October 11th.
Freund said the NASA and Lockheed Martin Space teams have been rehearsing every step of the way in preparation for the delivery date.
Recently, the team used an aircraft to drop a sample capsule, retrieve it, and prepare it for transport.
Molly Wasser/NASA
The OSIRIS-REx team held a final rehearsal on August 30, dropping a mock capsule by helicopter from 7,000 feet above ground. Ground and air infrared, radar, and optical instruments practiced tracking the capsule’s descent.
We also addressed difficult scenarios from the command center, such as what to do if the spacecraft restarts, how to come out of safe mode, and how to forward communications between different centers in case of a network outage.
The team is also prepared for various landing scenarios, including a hard landing in which the capsule containing the sample unexpectedly opens. The team then evaluates whether the samples can be saved.
Another possibility is that the probe may not be able to release the sample on Sept. 24 if landing within range is not possible, Barnes said. In that scenario, the sample would remain on board and the capsule would be carried by the spacecraft’s orbit. It will return to Earth and attempt another release over Utah in 2025.
Johnson Space Center has a history of storing, handling, and analyzing extraterrestrial materials, including lunar samples from the Apollo missions. Kevin Reiter, OSIRIS-REx’s deputy director of curation, said NASA has been working for years to create a special facility at Johnson for Bennu samples.
A dedicated cleanroom will prevent potential cross-contamination with other collections as scientists analyze soil and rocks over the next two years. Some of the material will be smaller than a grain of sand, said Christopher Sneed, Johnson’s director of small particle processing and OSIRIS-REx associate curator.
“We have developed custom tools to carefully handle these precious particles inside our new glovebox,” Snead said in a statement. mentioned.
NASA
Researchers will use gloveboxes to carefully handle the samples in a new clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
This sample reveals information about the formation and history of our solar system and the role of asteroids in helping develop habitable planets like Earth. Scientists believe that asteroids such as Bennu collided with the Earth early in its formation, bringing elements such as water.
The samples will be divided and sent to laboratories around the world, including OSIRIS-REx mission partners at the Canadian Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Approximately 70% of samples are preserved in archival form, allowing future generations with better technology to learn more than is possible today.
“The asteroids that exist in our solar system today are leftovers. “It started early in the history of the solar system,” Lauretta said. “We are literally observing geological material that was formed before the earth existed. I call these my grandfather’s rocks. They tell us about our origins and where we came from.” This is a gift to the world.”