Scientists outside of NASA's OSIRIS-REx team are getting their first close look at the asteroid Bennu samples available for independent research just six months after their delivery to Earth. The curation team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston has released the OSIRIS-REx sample catalog detailing the small rocks and dust that scientists around the …
Read Full Post
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams) of material from asteroid Bennu when it returned to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023; the largest asteroid sample ever collected in space and over twice the mission's requirement. The mission team needed at least 60 grams of material to meet the mission's science goals, an amount that …
Read Full Post
Curation team members at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have successfully removed the two fasteners from the sampler head that had prevented the remainder of OSIRIS-REx's asteroid Bennu sample material from being accessed. Steps now are underway to complete the disassembly of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM, head to reveal the rest …
Read Full PostNASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule landed under parachute in the Utah desert on Sept. 24, 2023, and safely delivered a cannister of rocks and dust collected from near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Although the delivery was successful, the landing sequence did not go entirely according to plan, with a small parachute called a drogue not deploying as …
Read Full PostThe curation team processing NASA's asteroid Bennu sample has removed and collected 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of rocks and dust from the sampler hardware – surpassing the agency's goal of bringing at least 60 grams to Earth. And the good news is, there's still more of NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith …
Read Full Post
Making stereoscopic images of asteroid Bennu was not part of the brief of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission; but we civilians, Claudia Manzoni and myself, were invited by mission principal investigator Dante Lauretta to join the science team and find opportunities for stereoscopy in the wealth of visual data acquired by the spacecraft's cameras at Bennu. To …
Read Full Post
As the astromaterials curation team at NASA's Johnson Space Center continues to collect the bonus asteroid Bennu particles located outside the OSIRIS-REx TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head, they've also completed additional steps toward disassembly and reveal of the bulk asteroid sample inside the head. Curation scientists removed 14 circular witness plates from the top …
Read Full Post
After years of anticipation and hard work by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) team, a capsule of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu returned to Earth on Sept. 24 in a targeted area of the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City. …
Read Full Post
The initial curation process for NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample of asteroid Bennu is moving slower than anticipated, but for the best reason: the sample runneth over. The abundance of material found when the science canister lid was removed earlier this week has meant that the process of disassembling the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head – …
Read Full Post