A Final Look At Bennu Before OSIRIS-REx Heads Home arizona.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from arizona.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
On April 7, NASA s University of Arizona-led OSIRIS-REx mission will give asteroid Bennu one last glance before saying farewell. Before departing for Earth on May 10, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will perform a final flyby of Bennu – capturing its last images of sample collection site Nightingale to look for transformations on Bennu s surface after the Oct. 20, 2020, sample collection event. We are really excited that we get to take one last look at Bennu and are really curious about any way the surface might have changed as a result of TAG (the Touch-and-Go sample collection event), said
Dani DellaGiustina, lead scientist on the mission s image processing team and senior staff scientist at the UArizona
This illustration shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft departing asteroid Bennu to begin its two-year journey back to Earth. Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona.
On May 10, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, or the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, will say farewell to asteroid Bennu and begin its journey back to Earth.
During its Oct. 20, 2020, sample collection event, the spacecraft collected a substantial amount of material from Bennu’s surface, likely exceeding the mission’s requirement of 2 ounces (60 grams). The spacecraft is scheduled to deliver the sample to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023.
“Leaving Bennu’s vicinity in May puts us in the ‘sweet spot,’ when the departure maneuver will consume the least amount of the spacecraft’s onboard fuel,” said Michael Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Nevertheless, with over 593 miles per hour (265 me
NASA s asteroid-sampling OSIRIS-REx probe will head back to Earth in May Engadget 1/27/2021 Mariella Moon
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will soon bid asteroid Bennu farewell. NASA has announced that OSIRIS-REx will start its journey back to our planet on May 10th, two-and-a-half years after it rendezvoused with the near-Earth asteroid. The agency launched the spacecraft back in 2016 to collect samples from Bennu in hopes that analyzing the materials could give us more insight into the formation of the Solar System and into the beginning of life here on Earth.
OSIRIS-REx observed the asteroid’s surface for months after the rendezvous to find the perfect site for sample collection. In October 2020, it finally touched the space rock’s surface just long enough to scoop up samples of regolith that scientists can examine. In fact, it grabbed more than the mission’s requirement of 60 grams, which is why the sample container started leaking and NASA had to speed up