The satellite, OSIRIS-REx, was situated aboard an Atlas V rocket that appeared to launch without a hitch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral at 7:05 p.m. EST on Thursday night, September 8.
Advertisement
Engineers at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton designed and built the spacecraft for NASA, and the Atlas V rocket that took it into space with 1.2 million pounds of thrust came from the United Launch Alliance, based in Centennial.
“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”.
After almost two years in orbit around 101955 Bennu, OSIRIS-REx will attempt an extremely close approach without landing, using its robotic arm to scoop up a material sample from the asteroid’s surface.
These bite-size bits of ancient space rock from asteroid Bennu could hold clues to the origin of life, not just on our planet but potentially elsewhere in the solar system.
OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth in September 2023, when it will then be transported to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for examination.
He said the mission to Bennu means “great science ahead of us”. 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’re going to fly a spacecraft onto the surface of an asteroid”.
In March 2021 OSIRIS-Rex will begin its return journey to Earth and by 2023 the capsule containing the space rock will land gently in the Utah desert.
A Nasa spacecraft has blasted off on a seven-year mission to explore an asteroid. Scientists from across the country are helping with the mission, including planetary scientists from UCF.
The Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is an innovative machine created to observe and map an asteroid.
As per NASA, asteroids like Bennu are remnants from the formation of our solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago.
“We got everything just exactly ideal”, added Osiris-Rex chief scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona.
Bennu, which completes an orbit of the sun every 1.2 years, comes within 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) of the Earth every six years, making it one of the most accessible “near-Earth objects” (NEOs), according to NASA.
As it briefly touches down it will blow high pressure nitrogen gas into the surface, dislodging dust and rock which it will suck up and store in a sterile capsule. The probe is now embarked on its way on a almost two-year voyage to the asteroid Bennu.
Advertisement
OSRIS-REx is now on a seven-year mission to recover dirt from the asteroid, which researchers say will reveal more about Earth’s origins. And with the spacecraft named after the Egyptian god Osiris, Bennu was an obvious choice, he said. Among the well-wishers: Mike Puzio, the 12-year-old North Carolina boy who won a contest to name the asteroid.
