Nasa's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has now started its return journey back to Earth, complete with cargo of samples and data collected by sensors produced by aer
NASA s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Returning to Earth With Asteroid Bennu Sample in Tow
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NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft was originally launched from Florida s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on September 8, 2016. OSIRIS-REx s main objective is to retrieve a sample from Bennu, the near-Earth asteroid the spacecraft landed on in 2018.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Monday began its two-and-a-half-year trek back to Earth, NASA revealed in a same-day announcement.
According to the news release, the spacecraft fired its main engines for some seven minutes, thrusting it away from asteroid Bennu at approximately 600 miles per hour (965 kilometers per hour).
simulating reentry velocities and conditions with a three-stage solid-fuel Lockheed X-17.
A total of 26 X-17 flights were conducted until March 1957.
1958 Aug 27 -Launch Site USS Norton Sound Launch Complex
Argus 1
The Argus series were the only clandestine nuclear ever conducted by the United States.The rocket-launched nuclear warheads were set off at very high altitudes over the South Atlantic,1800 km south-west of Capetown,South Africa. The purpose was to determine the effects of nuclear tests explosions on the Earth’s
magnetic field and the impact to military radar, communications, satellites and ballistic missiles electronics. The earth’s magnetic field is not only off-axis from the earth,but also off centre from the earth’s core. This means the Van Allen Radiation belts are closest to the earth in the region known as the ‘South Atlantic Anomaly’.
NASA shares final photo taken by OSIRIS-REx of asteroid Bennu
Shane McGlaun - Apr 16, 2021, 5:02am CDT
Not long ago, NASA had its spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx make one final flyby of asteroid Bennu before departing for the long trip back to Earth. One reason for the flyby was so that the spacecraft can capture an image showing the aftermath of its encounter with the asteroid. On that final flyby, OSIRIS-REx flew within 2.3 miles of the asteroid, which is the closest it has been to Bennu since the sample collection event last October.
During the sample collection event, the spacecraft sampling head was jammed 1.6-feet into the asteroid’s surface, and a pressurized charge of nitrogen gas was fired. That caused the churning of surface material and drove some of the material into the spacecraft sample collection chamber. When OSIRIS-REx backed away from the asteroid’s surface, its thrusters also propelled rocks and dust away from the surface of the asteroid.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx is only a few weeks away from the start of its journey back to Earth leaving asteroid Bennu behind for good. Well, not the whole asteroid. Last October 20, the NASA spacecraft touched briefly on the asteroid surface (Touch-And-Go maneuver or TAG) and collected a sample of soil and this will soon come to Earth.
During TAG the spacecraft sampling head sunk about half a meter (1.6 feet) into the soil releasing a charge of nitrogen gas to lift soil into the collection chamber. On April 7, OSIRIS-REx flew just 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) from Bennu, the closest it has been since TAG. And the team took this flyby to have a look at what the effect of TAG was.