Success of NASA’s First Mission to Take Asteroid Samples

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – NASA announced the success of its first mission to take asteroid samples. Through this, scientists hope that this material will provide humanity with a better understanding of the formation of our Solar System and how Earth became habitable.

The US spacecraft OSIRIS-REx, launched in 2016, took samples from an asteroid called Bennu.

The landing of the mission carrying the samples occurred at a military testing site in the western United States and is planned to land on Sunday (24/9).

About four hours before landing, about 108,000 km from Earth, the Osiris-Rex probe released the capsule containing the samples.

The final descent lasted 13 minutes: The capsule entered the atmosphere at a speed of about 43,000 km/h and reached a maximum temperature of 2,800 degrees Celsius, NASA said, quoted from Channel News Asia, Friday (22/9/2023).

If all goes well, two successive parachutes will bring the capsule to a soft landing in the desert.

Where the capsule will be taken by previously stationed staff.

Hitting the 650-square-km target area was like “throwing a dart across a basketball court and hitting the target,” said Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA.

The night before landing, controllers will have a last chance to abort if conditions are not right. If so, the probe will circle the Sun before its next attempt, in 2025.

“Return mission examples are difficult. There are a number of things that could go wrong,” said Sandra Freund, Lockheed Martin’s OSIRIS-REx program manager.

The team carefully prepared for the capsule’s return – even a “hard landing scenario” according to Freund – to preserve the asteroid material in its original form.

video-gallery--item__video-caption_read-video-article">NASA will reportedly crash a plane into the asteroid Dimorphos today, Monday (26/09/2022). This plan is known to be part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) program to protect Earth from asteroid hits.

2023-09-22 13:40:00
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