“You can think of these asteroids as literally prebiotic chemical factories that were producing building blocks of life 4.5 billion years ago, before Earth formed, before life started here”, NASA astrobiologist Daniel Glavin said before launch.
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If all goes according to plan, OSIRIS-REx will meet up with Bennu in 2020, grab some dirt and rocks from the asteroid’s surface two years later, and return the sample to Earth in September 2023.
“We were able to deliver OSIRIS-REx on time and under budget to the launch site, and will soon do something that no other NASA spacecraft has done – bring back a sample from an asteroid”, Donnelly said.
Flying to another world is no simple matter. In a bit of Hollywood-style drama, it will fly over Utah and drop off the capsule holding the asteroid sample.
“You’ll all be real glad to know that we got everything just exactly ideal”, said Dante Lauretta, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. A North Carolina schoolboy had the winning entry in an worldwide student naming contest held by the University of Arizona, the Planetary Society and others; he likened the boxy spacecraft, with its twin solar wings and 10-foot mechanical arm, to the heron of Egyptian mythology, Bennu.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is the size of an SUV and its name stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer.
“Our Atlas V vehicle, as well as OSIRIS-REx, are safely buttoned up and secure inside the VIF”, Scott Messer, program manager for NASA missions said in a statement.
Bennu is shaped like a ball, with a fat middle.
Sample-Return missions are the future of space exploration, believes United Kingdom mission scientist Ian Franchi. The asteroid rotates every four hours – yes, a day is just over four hours at Bennu. Designed and built by Lockheed Martin, the TAGSAM will release a burst of nitrogen gas, collecting a sample by causing loose rocks and dust to be stirred up and blown into the sampler head located at the end of the robotic arm.
“Just an fantastic sight to see that everything is working together”, said Austin Wilson, studying aeronautics and space engineering at ASU.
Bennu has a diameter of 1,614 feet (492 meters).
“Inside this region of the proto planetary disk there were bodies that were cumulating – many of them were getting water, ice and organic material”.
The spacecraft must wait until March 2021, when the orbits of Bennu and Earth are correctly aligned, before starting the trip home.
Overview of OSIRIS-REx mission. Once there, it will spend another two years orbiting and mapping the asteroid, which is believed to be as old as the solar system itself – and largely untouched in those 4.5 billion years.
Bennu is potentially hazardous, but no Earth-ender. But it wouldn’t be a knockout punch for Earth or life as we know it, Lauretta said.
Even before it returns, a successful mission could help fledgling asteroid mining concerns prove that their ideas have merit.
Bennu is the color of coal.
“[These] may be the precursors to life in Earth or elsewhere in our solar system.”
The CSA says the laser’s precise measurements will “provide mission scientists with unprecedented information on the asteroid’s shape, topography, distribution of boulders, rocks and other surface features”.
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The ultimate goal of this launch is to get a sample of an asteroid back to Earth that hasn’t been scorched by falling through the atmosphere in the normal way.
