https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... llect-dustA Nasa spacecraft has successfully landed on an asteroid, dodging boulders the size of buildings, in order to collect a handful of cosmic rubble for analysis back on Earth.
The space agency team behind the Osiris-Rex project said preliminary data showed the sample collection went as planned and that the spacecraft had lifted off the surface of asteroid Bennu.
“I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,” said lead scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona. “The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do.”
Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
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TheGreenGoblin
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Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
Nasa Osiris-Rex spacecraft lands on asteroid Bennu in mission to collect dust
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
It now seems they may have inadvertently collected more of the asteroid than they planned and they are having 'fun' trying to get the sample stowed in the recovery module.
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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
-
TheGreenGoblin
- Chief Pilot
- Posts: 17596
- Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:02 pm
- Location: With the Water People near Trappist-1
Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats asteroid!
\More a case of asteroid eats Osiris Rex...
Astroid... what was I thinking!
Astroid... what was I thinking!
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."
Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
NASA spacecraft delivering biggest sample yet from an asteroid
A NASA spacecraft will fly by Earth on Sunday and drop off what is expected to be at least a cupful of rubble it grabbed from the asteroid Bennu, closing out a seven-year quest.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/n ... rcna111316
Planet Earth is about to receive a special delivery — the biggest sample yet from an asteroid.
A NASA spacecraft will fly by Earth on Sunday and drop off what is expected to be at least a cupful of rubble it grabbed from the asteroid Bennu, closing out a seven-year quest.
The sample capsule will parachute into the Utah desert as its mothership, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft, zooms off for an encounter with another asteroid.
Scientists anticipate getting about a half pound (250 grams) of pebbles and dust, much more than the teaspoon or so brought back by Japan from two other asteroids. No other country has fetched pieces of asteroids, preserved time capsules from the dawn of our solar system that can help explain how Earth — and life — came to be.
Sunday’s landing concludes a 4 billion-mile (6.2-billion-kilometer) journey highlighted by the rendezvous with the carbon-rich Bennu, a unique pogo stick-style touchdown and sample grab, a jammed lid that sent some of the stash spilling into space, and now the return of NASA’s first asteroid samples.
“I ask myself how many heart-pounding moments can you have in one lifetime because I feel like I might be hitting my limit,” said the University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, the mission’s lead scientist.
Asteroid chaser Osiris-Rex blasted off on the $1 billion mission in 2016. It arrived at Bennu in 2018 and spent the next two years flying around the small spinning space rock and scouting out the best place to grab samples.
Three years ago, the spacecraft swooped in and reached out with its 11-foot (3-meter) stick vacuum, momentarily touching the asteroid’s surface and sucking up dust and pebbles. The device pressed down with such force and grabbed so much that rocks became wedged around the rim of the lid.
As samples drifted off into space, Lauretta and his team scrambled to get the remaining material into the capsule. The exact amount inside won’t be known until the container is opened.
Discovered in 1999, Bennu is believed to be a remnant of a much larger asteroid that collided with another space rock. It’s barely one-third of a mile (half a kilometer) wide, roughly the height of the Empire State Building, and its black rugged surface is packed with boulders.
Roundish in shape like a spinning top, Bennu orbits the sun every 14 months, while rotating every four hours. Scientists believe Bennu holds leftovers from the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago. It may come dangerously close and strike Earth on Sept. 24, 2182 — exactly 159 years after the asteroid’s first pieces arrive.
Osiris-Rex’s up-close study can help humanity figure out how to deflect Bennu if needed, Lauretta said.
Osiris-Rex will release the sample capsule from 63,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) out, four hours before it’s due to touch down at the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range on Sunday morning. The release command will come from spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin’s control center in Colorado. Soon afterward, the mothership will steer away and take off to explore another asteroid.
The capsule — nearly 3 feet wide (81 centimeters) and 1.6 feet tall (50 centimeters) — will hit the atmosphere at 27,650 mph (44,500 kph) for the final 13 minutes of descent remaining. The main parachute will slow the last mile (1.6 kilometers), allowing for a mild 11 mph (18 kph) touchdown. Once everything is deemed safe, the capsule will be hustled by helicopter to a makeshift clean lab at the range.
The next morning, a plane will carry the sealed container full of rubble to Houston, home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. NASA is livestreaming the touchdown, set for around 10:55 a.m. EDT.
A new lab at Johnson will be limited to the Bennu rubble to avoid cross-contamination with other collections, said NASA curator Kevin Righter. Building 31 already holds the moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts from 1969 through 1972, as well as comet dust and specks of solar wind collected during two previous missions and Mars meteorites found in Antarctica.
The asteroid samples will be handled inside nitrogen-purging gloveboxes by staff in head-to-toe clean room suits. NASA plans a splashy public reveal of Bennu’s riches on Oct. 11.
This fall is what NASA is calling Asteroid Autumn, with three asteroid missions marking major milestones. The Osiris-Rex touchdown will be followed by the launch of another asteroid hunter on Oct. 5. Both the NASA spacecraft and its target — a metal asteroid — are named Psyche.
Then a month later, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will encounter its first asteroid since soaring from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2021. Lucy will swoop past Dinkinesh in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter on Nov. 1. It’s a warmup for Lucy’s unprecedented tour of the so-called Trojans, swarms of asteroids that shadow Jupiter around the sun. Neither Psyche nor Lucy will collect souvenirs, nor will Osiris-Rex on its next assignment, to explore the asteroid Apophis in 2029.
This is NASA’s third sample return from deep space, not counting the hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of moon rocks gathered by the Apollo astronauts.
The agency’s first robotic sample grab ended with a bang in 2004. The capsule bearing solar wind particles slammed into the Utah desert and shattered, compromising the samples. Two years later, a U.S. capsule with comet dust landed intact.
Japan’s first asteroid sample mission returned microscopic grains from asteroid Itokawa in 2010. It’s second trip yielded about 5 grams — a teaspoon or so— from the asteroid Ryugu in 2020. The Soviet Union transported moon samples to Earth during the 1970s, and China returned lunar material in 2020.
PP
A NASA spacecraft will fly by Earth on Sunday and drop off what is expected to be at least a cupful of rubble it grabbed from the asteroid Bennu, closing out a seven-year quest.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/n ... rcna111316
Planet Earth is about to receive a special delivery — the biggest sample yet from an asteroid.
A NASA spacecraft will fly by Earth on Sunday and drop off what is expected to be at least a cupful of rubble it grabbed from the asteroid Bennu, closing out a seven-year quest.
The sample capsule will parachute into the Utah desert as its mothership, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft, zooms off for an encounter with another asteroid.
Scientists anticipate getting about a half pound (250 grams) of pebbles and dust, much more than the teaspoon or so brought back by Japan from two other asteroids. No other country has fetched pieces of asteroids, preserved time capsules from the dawn of our solar system that can help explain how Earth — and life — came to be.
Sunday’s landing concludes a 4 billion-mile (6.2-billion-kilometer) journey highlighted by the rendezvous with the carbon-rich Bennu, a unique pogo stick-style touchdown and sample grab, a jammed lid that sent some of the stash spilling into space, and now the return of NASA’s first asteroid samples.
“I ask myself how many heart-pounding moments can you have in one lifetime because I feel like I might be hitting my limit,” said the University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, the mission’s lead scientist.
Asteroid chaser Osiris-Rex blasted off on the $1 billion mission in 2016. It arrived at Bennu in 2018 and spent the next two years flying around the small spinning space rock and scouting out the best place to grab samples.
Three years ago, the spacecraft swooped in and reached out with its 11-foot (3-meter) stick vacuum, momentarily touching the asteroid’s surface and sucking up dust and pebbles. The device pressed down with such force and grabbed so much that rocks became wedged around the rim of the lid.
As samples drifted off into space, Lauretta and his team scrambled to get the remaining material into the capsule. The exact amount inside won’t be known until the container is opened.
Discovered in 1999, Bennu is believed to be a remnant of a much larger asteroid that collided with another space rock. It’s barely one-third of a mile (half a kilometer) wide, roughly the height of the Empire State Building, and its black rugged surface is packed with boulders.
Roundish in shape like a spinning top, Bennu orbits the sun every 14 months, while rotating every four hours. Scientists believe Bennu holds leftovers from the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago. It may come dangerously close and strike Earth on Sept. 24, 2182 — exactly 159 years after the asteroid’s first pieces arrive.
Osiris-Rex’s up-close study can help humanity figure out how to deflect Bennu if needed, Lauretta said.
Osiris-Rex will release the sample capsule from 63,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) out, four hours before it’s due to touch down at the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range on Sunday morning. The release command will come from spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin’s control center in Colorado. Soon afterward, the mothership will steer away and take off to explore another asteroid.
The capsule — nearly 3 feet wide (81 centimeters) and 1.6 feet tall (50 centimeters) — will hit the atmosphere at 27,650 mph (44,500 kph) for the final 13 minutes of descent remaining. The main parachute will slow the last mile (1.6 kilometers), allowing for a mild 11 mph (18 kph) touchdown. Once everything is deemed safe, the capsule will be hustled by helicopter to a makeshift clean lab at the range.
The next morning, a plane will carry the sealed container full of rubble to Houston, home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. NASA is livestreaming the touchdown, set for around 10:55 a.m. EDT.
A new lab at Johnson will be limited to the Bennu rubble to avoid cross-contamination with other collections, said NASA curator Kevin Righter. Building 31 already holds the moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts from 1969 through 1972, as well as comet dust and specks of solar wind collected during two previous missions and Mars meteorites found in Antarctica.
The asteroid samples will be handled inside nitrogen-purging gloveboxes by staff in head-to-toe clean room suits. NASA plans a splashy public reveal of Bennu’s riches on Oct. 11.
This fall is what NASA is calling Asteroid Autumn, with three asteroid missions marking major milestones. The Osiris-Rex touchdown will be followed by the launch of another asteroid hunter on Oct. 5. Both the NASA spacecraft and its target — a metal asteroid — are named Psyche.
Then a month later, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will encounter its first asteroid since soaring from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2021. Lucy will swoop past Dinkinesh in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter on Nov. 1. It’s a warmup for Lucy’s unprecedented tour of the so-called Trojans, swarms of asteroids that shadow Jupiter around the sun. Neither Psyche nor Lucy will collect souvenirs, nor will Osiris-Rex on its next assignment, to explore the asteroid Apophis in 2029.
This is NASA’s third sample return from deep space, not counting the hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of moon rocks gathered by the Apollo astronauts.
The agency’s first robotic sample grab ended with a bang in 2004. The capsule bearing solar wind particles slammed into the Utah desert and shattered, compromising the samples. Two years later, a U.S. capsule with comet dust landed intact.
Japan’s first asteroid sample mission returned microscopic grains from asteroid Itokawa in 2010. It’s second trip yielded about 5 grams — a teaspoon or so— from the asteroid Ryugu in 2020. The Soviet Union transported moon samples to Earth during the 1970s, and China returned lunar material in 2020.
PP
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OneHungLow
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Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
Bennu spacecraft and samples all set to enter the earths atmosphere...
The observer of fools in military south and north...
Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
It's down and recovery is in progress. Sounds like they fitted the gravity switches the right way up this time. 
Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
They said that the parachute deployed at ~20,000 feet rather that the 5,000 feet as planned. 
How does account for the capsule touching down minutes earlier than forecast?
PP
How does account for the capsule touching down minutes earlier than forecast?
PP
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Wodrick
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Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
I wonder if they have read "The Andromeda Strain"
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OneHungLow
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Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
Seems they think the radiation from the solar wind will have sterilised both the sample and the spacecraft.
The biggest risk is that the sample will be contaminated here on earth.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66893661Cleanliness was the watchword out in the desert. When the recovery teams caught up with the capsule on the ground, their motivation was to bring it back to a temporary clean room at the nearby Dugway army base as quickly as possible.
If, as researchers think, the sample contains carbon compounds that may have been involved in the creation of life then mixing the rocky material with present-day Earth chemistry has to be avoided.
"The cleanliness and preventing contamination of the spacecraft has been a really stringent requirement on the mission," said Mike Morrow, the Osiris-Rex deputy project manager.
"The best way that we can protect the sample is just to get it from the field into the clean lab that we've set up here in a hangar as quickly as possible and get it under a pure nitrogen gas purge. And then it's safe."
The recovery teams will disassemble the capsule, removing its heatshield and back cover but leaving the sample secure inside an inner canister.
The observer of fools in military south and north...
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OFSO
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Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
I wonder if they've seen Quatermass I......
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OneHungLow
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Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
Do they have a Hobbs Lane or End in Utah?
If I remember the film correctly they defeated the malevolent alien force by earthing it, which is just what NASA have done with the sample in this case.
The observer of fools in military south and north...
Re: Tyrannosaurus Rex eats astroid!
Queen’s Brian May helped NASA return its first asteroid sample
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/25/world/br ... index.html
Brian May has once again proven why he is rock royalty. Not only is he the Queen guitarist, but he is also an astrophysicist who recently helped NASA return its first ever asteroid sample to Earth.
May said he was “immensely proud” to be part of the team that collected the sample from the asteroid Bennu.
“Hello NASA folks, space fans, asteroid aficionados. This is Brian May of Queen as you know probably, but also immensely proud to be a team member of OSIRIS-REx,” the 76-year-old musician said in a clip aired on NASA TV Sunday.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth on Sunday, seven years after it was launched to space to collect samples from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. It collected the sample from the more than 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid in 2020 before setting off on its return journey to Earth, specifically Utah, in 2021.
May played a crucial role in the mission, creating stereoscopic images from the spacecraft’s data that allowed the leader of the mission, Dante Lauretta, and the team to locate a safe site to land and collect a sample.
In the clip, May apologized for not being with the team on the momentous occasion.
“I’m rehearsing for a Queen tour but my heart stays with you as this precious sample is recovered,” he explained.
“Happy sample return day, and congratulations to all who work so incredibly hard on this mission, especially my dear friend Dante.”
“God bless you all,” he added.
After dropping off the sample capsule in Utah, OSIRIS-REx is continuing its travels to study a different asteroid, named Apophis, the space agency said.
PP
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/25/world/br ... index.html
Brian May has once again proven why he is rock royalty. Not only is he the Queen guitarist, but he is also an astrophysicist who recently helped NASA return its first ever asteroid sample to Earth.
May said he was “immensely proud” to be part of the team that collected the sample from the asteroid Bennu.
“Hello NASA folks, space fans, asteroid aficionados. This is Brian May of Queen as you know probably, but also immensely proud to be a team member of OSIRIS-REx,” the 76-year-old musician said in a clip aired on NASA TV Sunday.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth on Sunday, seven years after it was launched to space to collect samples from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. It collected the sample from the more than 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid in 2020 before setting off on its return journey to Earth, specifically Utah, in 2021.
May played a crucial role in the mission, creating stereoscopic images from the spacecraft’s data that allowed the leader of the mission, Dante Lauretta, and the team to locate a safe site to land and collect a sample.
In the clip, May apologized for not being with the team on the momentous occasion.
“I’m rehearsing for a Queen tour but my heart stays with you as this precious sample is recovered,” he explained.
“Happy sample return day, and congratulations to all who work so incredibly hard on this mission, especially my dear friend Dante.”
“God bless you all,” he added.
After dropping off the sample capsule in Utah, OSIRIS-REx is continuing its travels to study a different asteroid, named Apophis, the space agency said.
PP