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Spaceship With Impossible Name Coming Back to Earth With Asteroid Samples

Read this as fast as you can: Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer. Tricky, right? Don’t worry, there’s a short version for it: OSIRIS-Rex.
OSIRIS-Rex leaving Bennu, illustration 1 photo
Photo: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
All of the above is the name given by NASA to a spacecraft designed to sneak up on an asteroid, pinch it hard enough to rip something off of it, and then head back home with due diligence.

OSIRIS departed Earth in 2016, its target being a carbonaceous asteroid called Bennu that circles aimlessly in space some 205 million miles (330 million km) away from Earth. It reached it in 2018, and since then has been hard at work sampling the asteroid.

According to NASA, the spacecraft completed its mission in October 2020, when it finally managed to store the samples inside its capsule. Since then, the agency has been hard at work trying to figure out when OSIRIS should begin its trip back home. Finally, a date seems to have been set.

On May 10, the long journey back will commence, with the ship scheduled to reach our homeworld in September 2023. The departure date was chosen to allow OSIRIS to conduct a final fly-by of the asteroid and assess how its activities on the surface altered the sample site.

That’s because the sample collection procedure was no soft stroke. Nitrogen gas canisters and articulated arms were involved in collecting probably over 2 ounces (60 grams) of asteroid material.

“Leaving Bennu’s vicinity in May puts us in the ‘sweet spot,’ when the departure maneuver will consume the least amount of the spacecraft’s onboard fuel,” said in a statement Michael Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“Nevertheless, with over 593 miles per hour (265 meters per second) of velocity change, this will be the largest propulsive maneuver conducted by OSIRIS-REx since the approach to Bennu in October 2018.”

NASA wants asteroid samples on Earth as a means to study the formation of our solar system and Earth as a habitable planet, and for that, pieces of Bennu will be distributed to laboratories worldwide. As for the asteroid, it will probably carry on doing nothing until something crosses its path. Chances of Earth being that something are 1-in-2,700, but not before the year 2175.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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