The 19-storey rocket, built and flown for NASA by United Launch Alliance, hurled satellite explorer Osiris-Rex on its voyage to the near-Earth asteroid of Bennu. OSIRIS-REx will be the first US mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth. Ceres, one of the most intriguing objects in the solar system, is gushing water vapor from its frigid surface into space, scientists said on Wednesday in a finding that raises questions about whether it might be hospitable to life. This jet will break off samples to be collected and returned to Earth in 2023.
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“Sample return is really at the forefront of planetary exploration”, said SIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona. NASA hopes to get at least two ounces (60 grams) of material and perhaps as much as 4.4 pounds.
It will take two years for Osiris-Rex to reach Bennu, with the sampling actually taking place in 2020 after two years of science observations to pick the ideal grab-and-go spot.
Scientists say there’s a slim chance the asteroid could crash into Earth in about 150 years.
“We kind of expect a gravel field on the surface of the asteroid”, Lauretta said.
Although Bennu occupies the same approximate orbital distance from the sun, it poses little threat to Earth. A hundred engineers, including graduates and undergraduates from both universities, worked almost five years to build and test the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
After it grabs its sample, OSIRIS-REx is slated to head back to Earth in March 2021, arriving in September 2023.
A deep space craft is on a 4 billion mile mission to snag a sample of an asteroid.
Asteroids are considered to be like time capsules from the earliest stages of the formation of the solar system, and may contain materials which helped lead to life beginning on Earth. Nitrogen gas then blows on the surface to stir up the particles and snatch them up.
NASA successfully launched a space probe bound for the asteroid Bennu Thursday, September 8 at 7:05 p.m. ET.
OSIRIS-REx will keep flying and will go orbit the sun. Spacecraft managers call it “the gentle high five”.
The name Bennu comes from the heron of Egyptian mythology.
After nearly an hour, OSIRIS-REx separated from its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, and is now relying on its solar arrays for enough power to complete its mission.
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The mission costs about $800 million excluding the rocket. Once its on board “SamCam” has varied that the sample acquisition event has been successful, OSIRIS-REx will lift off, sample in tow, from Bennu. “We are on our way to an asteroid”, said NASA’s chief scientist, Ellen Stofan.
