It took three months for NASA to open the fasteners on the Asteroid Bennu sample container.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Many might think that taking a spoonful of soil from an orbiting space rock and then sending it back to Earth would be the most complicated part of an asteroid sample collection mission. But the real challenge is opening the sample container once it returns home.
Reported Engadget, Monday (15/1/2024), it took more than three months, however NASA said they eventually managed to remove two fasteners that were preventing him from accessing most of the material collected from asteroid Bennu by his OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx delivered its samples on September 24 before leaving to study another asteroid, Apophis.
Although NASA was initially able to collect several ounces of asteroid material found in the exterior of the Touch-and-Go-Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), the contents inside remained locked due to problems with two of the 35 fasteners that keep the housing closed.
TAGSAM is housed in a special glovebox to prevent sample contamination, and only certain tools are approved for use with it. There was no tool that worked to remove stubborn fasteners from the TAGSAM head, so the team had to develop a new one.
“In addition to the design challenges of being limited to curation-approved materials to protect the scientific value of asteroid samples, these new tools also need to function within a very limited glovebox space, thereby limiting height, weight and arc movement potential,” said Dr Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curator.
Now that the TAGSAM head is freed, the team can continue dismantling the container. This means we will soon be able to see what’s inside. NASA’s initial assessment of dust and rock from beyond TAGSAM found evidence of carbon and water.
2024-01-16 07:17:15
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