With funding from the Canadian Space Agency, five Canadian universities are participating in the OSIRIS-REx mission: the Universities of York, Calgary, Toronto, British Columbia and UWinnipeg.
Advertisement
OSIRIS-REx is set to return to Earth in September 2023. The pogo mechanism moves back up, and OSIRIS-REx goes back into space and conducts a spin maneuver to verify it’s collected at least 60 grams worth of asteroid rock.
OSIRIS-REx mated to an Atlas V rocket.
What OSIRIS-REx won’t do … “We’re going to map it in great detail”.
“Our hope is that because this asteroid seems to be more carbon-rich than anything now in our collection, it may represent an unsampled meteorite type and will tell us something new about the solar system”, said Clark. If so, Bennu is a time capsule that could help explain how life sprouted on Earth and, possibly, elsewhere in the neighborhood. Scientists who have observed Bennu think it could contain organic molecules that date to the formation of the solar system – and could hold the recipe for life. “For that [search], it’s all about the sample”. Collecting the sample will take only about five seconds, and if the first try is unsuccessful, OSIRIS-REx can try, try again – up to three times. The samples will get back to Earth in 2023. OSIRIS-REx looks particularly bird-like with its solar panels and sample arm deployed; hence, Bennu was a flawless fit.
Bennu wouldn’t obliterate Earth or wipe out life, just carve out a huge crater.
Researchers have long theorised that comets or asteroids could have been responsible for delivering the first specks of organic materials or perhaps water that got things brewing on our planet.
NASA is going to considerable trouble and expense to meet up with Bennu – before Bennu meets up with Earth.
The team at NASA would have a daunting task ahead of them, as when the initial contact between Bennu and the spacecraft, the team would have to communicate with their equipment which would reach OSIRIS-REx after 14 mins, Nature reported.
“It’s the gift that keeps on giving”, Richey said.
NASA officials have announced that no change has been made in the launch of its first-ever asteroid-sampling spacecraft, which has been scheduled for the lift-off on Thursday evening. Before the probe swoops in to gently kiss the asteroid and gather a sample, OSIRIS-REx will spend somewhere between 18 months and two years extensively mapping the asteroid. It’s created to map out the minerals on Bennu’s surface.
The detailed maps will help scientists understand more about the part of the asteroid that their sample comes from, she said. “It also gives us some insight into how the mass is distributed inside the asteroid”.
Last year, TV favourite Professor Brian Cox said he predicted it was a matter of “when not if” an asteroid would hit Earth.
OSIRIS-REx will also study how the sun’s light can shift the orbit of an asteroid.
If you’re thinking this sounds a bit like the plot from the 1998 sci-fi flick “Armageddon” you would be right, but without Bruce Willis (there won’t be any people of this spacecraft) and without space shuttles (NASA retired the shuttles in 2011). “So once we have that, we’re not going to try to touch that again”. “Bennu is an unexplored world”. One final question – what’s the point?
Advertisement
“I am absolutely not nervous because we have a phenomenal team and they know what they are doing and I have my full and faith that they are going to get this job done”, Lauretta said.
