LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) — NASA has completed the final major test in preparation for the arrival of the first sample collected from an asteroid by a US mission — which is scheduled to land on Earth in September, the agency said.
A life-size model of the sample capsule of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Spectral Origins Explorer, Enhanced Protection Identifier and Resource Interpreter) spacecraft was lowered Wednesday from an aircraft and landed at the designated landing area at the Utah Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Field in the desert outside Salt Lake City.
This was part of the mission’s final major test before the actual capsule arrived on Sept. 24, carrying its sample from the asteroid Bennu, which had been collected in space nearly three years earlier.
For her part, said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, “We are now only weeks away from getting a piece of the history of the solar system on Earth, and this successful landing experience ensures that we are prepared.”
“The pristine raw materials from the asteroid Bennu will help reveal the formation of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, and perhaps even how life began on Earth,” Fox said.
The capsule holds an estimated 8.8 ounces of rocky material collected from the surface of asteroid Bennu in 2020, NASA said.
The agency indicated that researchers will study the sample in the coming years to learn how the Earth and the solar system were formed, as well as the origin of organic materials that may have led to life on Earth.
