NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft. After traveling through space for more than two years and over two billion kilometers, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft arrived at its destination, asteroid Bennu, on Monday, Dec. 3, 2018. The spacecraft will spend almost a year surveying the asteroid with five scientific instruments with the goal of selecting a location that is safe and scientifically interesting to collect the sample. OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth in September 2023. Online Jobs
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Arrives at Asteroid Bennu
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully arrived at asteroid Bennu on December 3, 2018, marking a historic milestone in planetary exploration. After a 1.2-billion-mile (2-billion-kilometer) journey spanning over two years, the spacecraft transitioned from its approach phase to orbiting the asteroid, initiating a detailed study of this ancient celestial body37. Bennu, a carbon-rich, near-Earth asteroid roughly 1,600 feet (492 meters) in diameter, became the smallest object ever orbited by a spacecraft, a testament to the mission’s precision navigation34.
Upon arrival, OSIRIS-REx began a preliminary survey, conducting flyovers of Bennu’s poles and equatorial regions at altitudes as low as 4 miles (7 kilometers). These maneuvers aimed to refine estimates of the asteroid’s mass, spin rate, and surface topography, critical for selecting a safe site to collect samples36. The mission’s scientific objectives included investigating Bennu’s composition, which is believed to preserve pristine materials from the early solar system, including organic molecules and hydrated minerals that may hold clues to the origins of life and Earth’s water411.
The arrival phase also highlighted technical challenges. Navigating around Bennu’s microgravity environment required innovative strategies, such as transitioning from star-based to landmark-based navigation using surface features like boulders and craters6. The mission team, led by the University of Arizona and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, celebrated the milestone as a stepping stone toward the spacecraft’s ultimate goal: collecting and returning a sample to Earth311.
This achievement set the stage for subsequent operations, including the Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection in 2020, which successfully retrieved 121.6 grams of material—surpassing mission requirements510. OSIRIS-REx’s arrival at Bennu not advanced our understanding of asteroid dynamics but also demonstrated NASA’s capability to explore and study small celestial bodies with unprecedented precision48. The returned samples, analyzed since 2023, continue to reveal insights into the solar system’s formation and the building blocks of life212.
Source : Scitechdaily
