NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission: Collecting Fragments of Asteroid Bennu in the Utah Desert

On September 24 of this year, fragments of the asteroid Bennu are scheduled to arrive in the Utah desert, United States. A NASA conducted a trial in mid-July with the OSIRIS-Rex mission team to determine how they will be collected.

The space agency defines this as “the most realistic essay to date”, as it took place at the Utah Department of Defense testing and training range.

Samples will be collected from the asteroid Bennu NASA images

Helicopter training was also conducted for members of the OSIRIS-REx team, who will fly to retrieve the sample capsule from its landing site in a 58 by 14 kilometer ellipse at the military firing range.

The Importance of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is the first North American mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, in this case Bennu.

OSIRIS-REx was launched on September 8, 2016 towards Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid about 500 meters in diameter. In 2020, the space probe collected dust samples from the asteroid with a robotic arm, with more than 60 grams.

His return, as we said, will take place on September 24th.

Bennu’s pristine material, rocks and dust collected from the asteroid’s surface, will offer generations of scientists a window into the time when the Sun and planets were forming, about 4.5 billion years agotells NASA.

The space agency showed, in photographs, step by step of the Bennu sample collection test.

This way the samples of the asteroid Bennu will be collected.

This way samples of the asteroid Bennu will be collected NASA images

The first person to approach the capsule once it lands in the desert will be a military man, who will look for unexploded ordnance.

This way samples of the asteroid Bennu will be collected NASA images

Then, team members pack the capsule for its helicopter flight, using a net: The conveyor will take the Bennu sample to a clean room at the Department of Defense testing and training range in Utah.

This way samples of the asteroid Bennu will be collected NASA images

Once the Bennu samples arrive on site, NASA scientists will begin the evaluation.

It’s another momentous moment in science that will take place on September 24th. We will know Bennu in detail, through its fragments.

2023-07-30 16:31:00
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