After months of tinkering with tubes containing rock samples from ancient asteroids, NASA engineers have finally managed to remove two stubborn nuts that appear to be preventing the space agency from collecting all of Bennu’s dust.
The OSIRIS-REx curation team successfully removed the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head, where most of the asteroid’s samples are stored, NASA announced in a blog post on Thursday. The team was forced to develop a new tool to help remove the two nuts that have held the sampling head in place since it landed on Earth in September 2023. Engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston removed the nuts on January 10.
“Our engineers and scientists have worked tirelessly behind the scenes for months to not only process the more than 70 grams of material we previously had access to, but also design, develop and test new tools that will allow us to overcome this barrier ,” said Eileen Stansbery, division chief for ARES (Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science) at NASA, in a statement. “The innovation and dedication of this team is extraordinary. We are all very excited to see what remaining treasures OSIRIS-REx holds.”
There are still several disassembly steps remaining before the remaining large sample is completely revealed and imaging specialists can take ultra-high resolution images while it is still inside the TAGSAM head. After that, samples will be taken and weighed, and NASA will determine the full amount of rock debris that OSIRIS-REx recovered from Bennu.
The OSIRIS-REx mission was launched in September 2016 and reached the asteroid Bennu in December 2018. The spacecraft picked up pieces of a small asteroid near Earth in October 2020 and began returning to Earth in May 2021. The spacecraft released the samples in the Utah desert in September 2023, but NASA has struggled to open the round sampling head at the end of the articulating arm the spacecraft uses to take samples.
Two of the 35 nuts on the TAGSAM head cannot be removed with the tools currently approved for use in the OSIRIS-REx glove box, preventing them from removing the samples inside.
The team managed to collect several materials from outside TAGSAM’s head. When the sample tube’s aluminum cover was first removed, team members discovered black dust and debris on the tube’s avionics deck. They also remove some of the material from the tube using tongs or a spoon while holding the mylar flap of the TAGSAM head. The total amount of bonus samples collected is estimated to be approximately 8.8 ounces of rock and dust (250 grams).
In November, the curation team began developing a new tool that would fit into a glove box containing sample tubes. “In addition to the design challenges of limiting the use of materials approved for curation to protect the scientific value of asteroid samples, these new tools must also function within the limited space inside the glove box, limiting their height, weight and potential arcing movement,” said Nicole Lunning, curator of OSIRIS-REx at NASA, in a statement.
These new tools end months of agony, and will soon give us access to valuable pieces of the asteroid Bennu.
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2024-01-11 19:38:35
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