It is the ultimate countdown.
NASA’s $1 billion OSIRIS-REx pattern return mission is lower than 48 hours away from its dramatic touchdown within the Utah desert. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft (which stands for “Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Useful resource Identification, Safety-Regolith Explorer”) is at the moment heading towards Earth whereas carrying valuable cargo: A capsule containing someplace round 8.8 ounces (250 grams) of fabric gathered from asteroid Bennu in 2020.
After being launched by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft at an altitude of about 63,000 miles (101,000 km) above Earth, the capsule ought to land within the Division of Protection’s distant Utah Take a look at and Coaching Vary (UTTR) on Sunday (Sept. 24) at 8:55 a.m. MDT (10:55 a.m. EDT, 1455 GMT). You possibly can watch the touchdown right here at Area.com courtesy of NASA.
OSIRIS-REx mission managers held a briefing Friday (Sept. 22) to speak via last preparations for the capsule’s return and focus on the current well being of the spacecraft. “Everyone actually feels a buzz of being lower than two days away from having the Bennu samples on the bottom,” Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program supervisor at Lockheed Martin, mentioned throughout the briefing. “We’re are very a lot assured that every one will go precisely as deliberate on Sunday morning. Our navigation and spacecraft efficiency has been distinctive and we’re headed proper for touchdown within the Utah Take a look at and Coaching Vary.”
Associated: How NASA’s OSIRIS-REx will convey asteroid samples to Earth in 5 not-so-easy steps
Learn extra: OSIRIS-REx’s asteroid pattern will come right down to Earth on Sept. 24. This is find out how to watch it reside.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made its last maneuver on Sept. 17 that put it on a exact course towards our planet and, as Freund mentioned, the mission appears to be proper on monitor to this point. “No extra maneuver alternatives have been wanted. The spacecraft trajectory and efficiency has simply been spot on.”
Nevertheless, the spacecraft will nonetheless want to regulate its orientation so it is pointed the place it must be to launch the asteroid pattern capsule to hit its goal. Mission planners will maintain a further assembly early Sunday morning (Sept. 24) to ballot whether or not capsule launch is a “go” or “no-go.”
However OSIRIS-REx staff leaders are assured that issues will go as deliberate, primarily based on how the mission has gone to this point. “OSIRIS-REx has been so profitable as a result of we proceed to concentrate to the main points, considering via all doable contingencies,” mentioned Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx mission. “For instance, if the pattern capsule have been to open even briefly, we’d need to ensure that any pattern materials that made it onto the Utah desert flooring was shortly recognized and recovered, in order that we may nonetheless extract significant science from it.”
Throughout the briefing, mission leaders pointed to a different instance, a problem that popped up in October 2020 when the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s pattern collector acquired jammed open and misplaced some materials to house. This prevented the crew from measuring the mass of the collected asteroid materials in full. However groups at Lockheed Martin, the aerospace contractor who constructed the spacecraft, have been capable of finding a workaround and OSIRIS-REx scientists in the end estimated the mass to be round 250 grams (8.8 ounces), plus or minus 101 grams (3.6 ounces).
“And that is excellent news as a result of the mission necessities that I promised Lori [Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Sciences Division at NASA] and the headquarters staff was that we’d convey again 60 grams [2.1 ounces]. So even on the low finish of that estimate, we’re properly above our mission requirement,” Lauretta mentioned.
If the capsule makes it safely to the desert flooring, will probably be met first by U.S. Air Drive personnel who will safe the touchdown web site and ensure it is protected for the following step, which includes restoration groups. From there, the capsule can be picked up by a Division of Protection helicopter and instantly transported to a brief clear room arrange at Dugway Proving Floor, a U.S. Military set up tasked with testing chemical and organic protection tools.
As soon as securely contained in the cleanroom at Dugway, the capsule can be opened and the canister containing the samples of asteroid Bennu can be readied for transport as soon as once more. They are going to then be flown to NASA’s Johnson Area Middle (JSC) in Houston, Texas the place they may have their very own newly-built facility ready for them, the company’s Astromaterials Analysis and Exploration Science (ARES) division.
The capsule {hardware} itself can be curated at JSC, and could also be made out there for “space-exposed {hardware} research, or different related sorts of scientific or public makes use of,” Glaze mentioned throughout the briefing.
If all goes based on plan, the OSIRIS-REx staff will then spend two years analyzing the fabric returned from Bennu. That evaluation may give scientists a greater understanding of the function carbon-rich asteroids like Bennu presumably performed in seeding Earth with the constructing blocks of life, or assist get a greater thought of what the earliest eras of our photo voltaic system have been like. To assist with the research of the asteroid materials, over 200 researchers at 35 totally different services can be given entry to 25% of the fabric recovered from Bennu.
70% of the fabric, in the meantime, will stay at Johnson Area Middle the place will probably be studied for years to return by “scientists not but born, utilizing applied sciences not but invented, to reply elementary questions concerning the photo voltaic system,” NASA’s official OSIRIS-REx press kit states.
The remaining 5% can be divided between the Canadian Area Company, who will get 4% of the pattern in return for growing the laser altimeter flown aboard OSIRIS-REx probe, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA), who will get 0.5%.
The mission is NASA’s first to gather an asteroid pattern, however the third worldwide. Japan beforehand flew two missions to perform such a activity: Hayabusa 1 collected mud and sand from asteroid Itokawa and returned the samples in 2010; and Hayabusa 2, which landed on asteroid Ryugu in 2019 returned its samples in 2020.
And although it stays unknown whether or not OSIRIS-REx will stick its touchdown, Lauretta is assured that it doesn’t matter what occurs on Sunday, his staff can be rewarded with priceless scientific information from this mission.
“This can be a hallmark of OSIRIS-REx from the very starting of idea growth via design, construct check launch operations, and now pattern curation and pattern evaluation,” Lauretta mentioned. “We have at all times taken a deliberate, cautious, cautious strategy. And I feel that is why this mission has been so profitable as much as this date. We do not let our enthusiasm get forward of us.”
