The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its method to Earth to drop off rocky samples from asteroid Bennu on Sunday, marking NASA’s first try to retrieve a bit of a pure house rock.
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The highly-anticipated drop-off has been seven years within the making, however the wait is lastly over. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to drop off the capsule containing the asteroid pattern on September 24 at 10:55 a.m. ET. You may tune in to the historic second reside by means of NASA TV, the NASA app, and the company’s web site, or by following the feed beneath. Protection will start at 10 a.m. ET on Sunday.
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The plan is for the spacecraft to drop off its treasured cargo throughout a detailed flyby of Earth, after which the capsule containing the asteroid samples will carry out a parachute-assisted touchdown on the Division of Protection’s Utah Take a look at and Coaching Vary. The capsule has to land inside a 37-mile by 9-mile ellipse (59 km by 15 km) about 13 minutes after it’s launched by the spacecraft.
OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016, and reached asteroid Bennu in December 2018. The spacecraft spent practically two years observing the house rock earlier than touchdown on Bennu and snagging a pattern from its floor in October 2020. On Could 10, 2021, OSIRIS-REx bid farewell to Bennu and commenced making its approach again residence to drop off its treasured cargo.
That is NASA’s first try at retrieving a pattern from an asteroid and it’s been a very long time within the making. Bennu is a small, near-Earth asteroid that makes a detailed go to Earth each six years or so. Scientists imagine Bennu might need damaged off from a a lot bigger carbon-rich asteroid about 700 million to 2 billion years in the past, and drifted a lot nearer to Earth since then.
By bringing the asteroid pattern to Earth, scientists will be capable of carefully analyze the house rock to assist uncover clues as to how life could have originated on Earth and whether or not asteroids carried the constructing blocks of life to our planet.
After delivering its pattern to Earth, OSIRIS-REx will start making its approach in the direction of its subsequent mission, exploring asteroid Apophis. Accordingly, the mission will likely be renamed to OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer).
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