{"id":16756,"date":"2014-12-15T22:08:31","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T14:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-jaxa-reach-asteroid-sample-sharing-agreement\/"},"modified":"2014-12-15T22:08:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T14:08:31","slug":"nasa-jaxa-reach-asteroid-sample-sharing-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-jaxa-reach-asteroid-sample-sharing-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA, JAXA reach asteroid sample-sharing agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft at asteroid Bennu. Credit: NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists from the United States and Japan plan to share asteroid specimens from the OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa 2 sample return missions under an agreement signed by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.<\/p>\n

The missions will explore two different asteroids later this decade, with Hayabusa 2 heading for a 3,000-foot-wide carbon-rich asteroid named 1999 JU3 and OSIRIS-REx targeting the slightly smaller asteroid Bennu, a near-Earth object that has a slight chance of striking Earth.<\/p>\n

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and JAXA President Naoki Okumura signed a memorandum of understanding Nov. 17 in Tokyo covering cooperation on the two asteroid missions.<\/p>\n

Under the terms of the agreement, NASA will receive 10 percent of the sample collected by Japan\u2019s Hayabusa 2 mission. JAXA will get one-half of one percent of the OSIRIS-REx sample, according to Dwayne Brown, a NASA spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2 is designed to return to Earth with at least one gram of material, including samples from beneath the surface of asteroid 1999 JU3. OSIRIS-REx will bring back a minimum of 60 grams \u2014 about 2.1 ounces \u2014 of samples from the surface of asteroid Bennu.<\/p>\n

Assuming each mission collects the minimum sample, NASA would receive about one-tenth of a gram of rock fragments from Hayabusa 2 and JAXA would get three-tenths of a gram from OSIRIS-REx.<\/p>\n

The accord signed by NASA and JAXA makes provisions for the exchange of samples even if one of the missions fails, said John Grunsfeld, head of NASA\u2019s science directorate.<\/p>\n

Missions to small objects in the solar system are important and exciting, Grunsfeld said in an interview with Spaceflight Now.<\/p>\n

He said Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REx will build on the success of the European Space Agency\u2019s Rosetta mission to a comet, which achieved the first landing on a comet\u2019s nucleus in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the success ESA had with Rosetta and Philae landing on a comet, it\u2019s obvious this kind of exploration really captures the public\u2019s interest,\u201d Grunsfeld said.<\/p>\n

\"John
John Grunsfeld, head of NASA\u2019s science directorate, says the U.S. space agency and JAXA will exchange OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa 2 asteroid samples even if one of the two missions does not succeed. Credit: NASA\/Joel Kowsky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just exchanging the samples,\u201d Grunsfeld said.<\/p>\n

NASA will support the curation of asteroid samples retrieved by Hayabusa 2, and the U.S. space agency\u2019s global network of deep space communications antennas will track the Japanese mission\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

Japan offered NASA a fraction of the microscopic specimens returned from asteroid Itokawa by the Hayabusa 1 mission in 2010.<\/p>\n

NASA has also agreed to send 4 percent of OSIRIS-REx\u2019s sample to Canada in a barter agreement to pay for a Canada\u2019s contribution of a laser altimeter sensor to the mission.<\/p>\n

In a best case scenario, scientists say the Japanese asteroid probe could bring back up to several grams of specimens and OSIRIS-REx could gather up to a two kilograms, or 4.4 pounds, of material.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuccessful sample collection from both target asteroids is expected to provide knowledge on the origin and evolution of the planets, and in particular the origin of water and organic matter on the Earth,\u201d said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission from the University of Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scientific return from the two missions combined is more than double the value of each individual mission,\u201d Lauretta wrote in a blog post. \u201cIn my opinion, it\u2019s quadruple or higher, because all of a sudden, you get to do cross-comparisons and intellectual activities that wouldn\u2019t be permitted with a single mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayabusa 2 launched on an H-2A rocket Dec. 3 from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan to begin an six-year roundtrip journey to asteroid 1999 JU3. The spacecraft will arrive at the asteroid in June 2018 after swinging by Earth late next year to get a boost to the mission\u2019s destination, which circles the sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars.<\/p>\n

\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft. Credit: Akihiro Ikeshita\/JAXA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hayabusa 2 will spend a year-and-a-half at asteroid 1999 JU3, enough time for the probe to pick up rock specimens from three different locations on the unexplored asteroid. The robotic craft will depart the asteroid in December 2019 and return to Earth in December 2020 for a scorching re-entry and parachute-assisted landing in the Australian outback.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard an Atlas 5 rocket in September 2016.<\/p>\n

The mission will swing by Earth for a slingshot maneuver a year after launch and reach asteroid Bennu in 2019. After a close-up survey of the asteroid, scientists will select a sampling site where the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will descend and snag a specimen of rock and dust from Bennu\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

The mission will deploy a landing capsule containing the samples to parachute to touchdown in Utah in 2023.<\/p>\n

Researchers say asteroids 1999 JU3 and Bennu slightly different types of worlds, but both may harbor organic compounds left over from the chaotic earliest period of the solar system\u2019s history. Asteroids are the remnant building blocks of planets and may hold clues to how water and life came to be on Earth.<\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist\u2019s concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft at asteroid Bennu. Credit: NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Scientists from the United States and Japan plan to share asteroid specimens from the OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa 2 sample return missions under an agreement signed by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The missions will explore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1519,1965,877,3766,1527],"class_list":["post-16756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroids","tag-hayabusa-2","tag-jaxa","tag-john-grunsfeld","tag-osiris-rex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}