OSIRIS-Rex’s capsule containing precious samples from the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu landed safely in a targeted area of the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City at 10:52 a.m. EDT (8:52 a.m. MDT) on September 24, 2023. Within an hour and a half, the capsule was transported by helicopter to a temporary clean room set up in a hangar on the training range, where it now is connected to a continuous flow of nitrogen.
The Bennu sample — an estimated 250 grams — will be transported in its unopened canister by aircraft to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on September 25, 2023.
Curation scientists there will disassemble the canister, extract and weigh the sample, create an inventory of the rocks and dust, and, over time, distribute pieces of Bennu to scientists worldwide.
The delivery of an asteroid sample went according to plan thanks to the massive effort of hundreds of people who remotely directed the spacecraft’s journey since it launched on September 8, 2016.
The OSIRIS-Rex team guided it to arrival at Bennu on December 3, 2018, through the search for a safe sample-collection site between 2019 and 2020, sample collection on October 20, 2020, and during the return trip home starting on May 10, 2021.
“Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team on a picture-perfect mission — the first American asteroid sample return in history — which will deepen our understanding of the origin of our Solar System and its formation,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“Not to mention, Bennu is a potentially hazardous asteroid, and what we learn from the sample will help us better understand the types of asteroids that could come our way.”
“With OSIRIS-REx, Psyche launch in a couple of weeks, DART’s one year anniversary, and Lucy’s first asteroid approach in November, Asteroid Autumn is in full swing.”
“These missions prove once again that NASA…
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