NASA’s first asteroid sampling spacecraft is making final preparations to grab a sample from asteroid Bennu’s surface. Next week, the OSIRIS-REx mission will conduct a second rehearsal of its touchdown sequence, practicing the sample collection activities one last time before touching down on Bennu this fall. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-08-osiris-rex-rehearsal-asteroid-bennu.html…
Tag: asteroid bennu
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx ready for touchdown on asteroid Bennu
NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission is officially prepared for its long-awaited touchdown on asteroid Bennu’s surface. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security—Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has targeted Oct. 20 for its first sample collection attempt. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-nasa-osiris-rex-ready-touchdown-asteroid.html…
One step closer to touching asteroid Bennu
After the successful completion of its “Checkpoint” rehearsal, NASA’s first asteroid-sampling spacecraft is one step closer to touching down on asteroid Bennu. Yesterday, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft performed the first practice run of its sample collection sequence, reaching an approximate altitude of 246 feet (75 meters) over site Nightingale before executing a back-away burn from the asteroid. Nightingale, OSIRIS-REx’s primary sample collection…
Rehearsal time for NASA’s asteroid sampling spacecraft
In August, a robotic spacecraft will make NASA’s first-ever attempt to descend to the surface of an asteroid, collect a sample, and ultimately bring it safely back to Earth. In order to achieve this challenging feat, the OSIRIS-REx mission team devised new techniques to operate in asteroid Bennu’s microgravity environment—but they still need experience flying the spacecraft in close proximity to…
Image: Bennu in unprecedented detail
This global map of asteroid Bennu’s surface is a mosaic of images collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft between Mar. 7 and Apr. 19, 2019. A total of 2,155 PolyCam images were stitched together and corrected to produce the mosaic. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-image-bennu-unprecedented.html…
First official names given to features on asteroid Bennu
Asteroid Bennu’s most prominent boulder, a rock chunk jutting out 71 ft (21.7 m) from the asteroid’s southern hemisphere, finally has a name. The boulder—which is so large that it was initially detected from Earth—is officially designated Benben Saxum after the primordial hill that first arose from the dark waters in an ancient Egyptian creation myth. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-features-asteroid-bennu.html…
OSIRIS-REx swoops over sample site Nightingale
NASA’s first asteroid-sampling spacecraft just got its best look yet at asteroid Bennu. Yesterday, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft executed a very low pass over sample site Nightingale, taking observations from an altitude of 820 feet (250 m), which is the closest that OSIRIS-REx has flown over the asteroid so far. Nightingale, OSIRIS-REx’s primary sample collection…
OSIRIS-REx students catch unexpected glimpse of black hole
University students and researchers working on a NASA mission orbiting a near-Earth asteroid have made an unexpected detection of a phenomenon 30 thousand light years away. Last fall, the student-built Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) onboard NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft detected a newly flaring black hole in the constellation Columba while making observations off the limb of asteroid Bennu. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-03-osiris-rex-students-unexpected-glimpse-black.html…
OSIRIS-REx completes closest flyover of sample site nightingale
Preliminary results indicate that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully executed a 0.4-mile (620-m) flyover of site Nightingale yesterday as part of the mission’s Reconnaissance B phase activities. Nightingale, OSIRIS-REx’s primary sample collection site, is located within a crater high in asteroid Bennu’s northern hemisphere. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-01-osiris-rex-closest-flyover-sample-site.html…
The citizen scientists who helped map Bennu
When NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission spacecraft arrived at the asteroid Bennu, it discovered more rocks and boulders than envisioned. Mapping all these potential hazards was necessary to select a location to collect a sample of the surface for return to Earth. This effort was the work of multiple teams around the globe. One of those teams consisted of more than 3,500 citizen…