NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, with a spacecraft at its center, has changed its course to return to Earth next year. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft used its thrusters for 30 seconds to alter its correct course.
The spacecraft is carrying a sample for the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, and this has happened for the first time for a spacecraft that has changed its path to return to Earth since it left on May 10, 2021.
Asteroids are made of what is left over from the inception of the solar system and the formation of its planets. Scientists are eager to explore more about what built the solar system, by examining OSIRIS-REx returns on September 24.
According to NASA, OSIRIS-REx, the sample return mission, which stands for Origins, Spectral, Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, is directed to make a “parcel drop”. The spacecraft needs to land on Earth at a certain speed and in the right direction carrying Bennu’s sample with it.
Mike Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland said, “If the capsule is angled too high, it will skip off the atmosphere. Angled too low, it will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.”
It is necessary for the spacecraft to approach Earth with a precise speed and in right direction to deliver the capsule containing the sample collected from the asteroid Bennu to Earth’s atmosphere safely.
“Over the next year, we will gradually adjust the OSIRIS-REx trajectory to target the spacecraft closer to Earth. We have to cross Earth’s orbit at the time that Earth will be at that same location”, said Daniel Wibben, trajectory and maneuver design lead with KinetX Inc. in partnership with Lockheed Martin’s team that controls spacecraft.
The spacecraft is supposed to come 155 miles (250 km) from Earth’s surface for it to release the sample capsule into the atmosphere which will be carried out by a parachute-guided landing at Air Force’s Utah Test and Training Range in the Great Salt Lake Desert.
Scientists will then take the samples to a specially built facility lab at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The sample will be carefully handled by scientists who would be equipped with special gloveboxes, tools, and storage containers to protect it from contamination.
Samples of the asteroid will be shared with other researchers across the world for future preservation and examination.
In July, scientists confirmed that information collected from OSIRIS-REx regarding Bennu’s surface brought out that the asteroid is so loosely packed that if the spacecraft landed on the asteroid instead of firing its thrusters, it would sink into the asteroid’s surface. The collected data also informed scientists whether Bennu, which is 1,200 feet in diameter, ever crash on Earth after its close could reach in 2135
In 2021, Kelly Fast, program manager for the Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA said, “NASA’s Planetary Defense mission is to find and monitor asteroids and comets that can come near Earth and may pose a hazard to our planet”.
She continued, “We carry out this endeavor through continuing astronomical surveys that collect data to discover previously unknown objects and refine our orbital models for them. The OSIRIS-REx mission has provided an extraordinary opportunity to refine and test these models, helping us better predict where Bennu will be when it makes its close approach to Earth more than a century from now.”
