{"id":18207,"date":"2018-12-31T21:42:16","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/osiris-rex-probe-goes-into-close-orbit-around-asteroid-bennu-and-sets-a-record\/"},"modified":"2018-12-31T21:42:16","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:42:16","slug":"osiris-rex-probe-goes-into-close-orbit-around-asteroid-bennu-and-sets-a-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/osiris-rex-probe-goes-into-close-orbit-around-asteroid-bennu-and-sets-a-record\/","title":{"rendered":"OSIRIS-REx probe goes into close orbit around asteroid Bennu and sets a record"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_471154\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-471154\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-471154\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/181231-orbital-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"OSIRIS-REx orbiting Bennu\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/181231-orbital-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/181231-orbital.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-471154\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows the OSIRIS-REx probe circling in to enter a close-in orbit around asteroid Bennu. (Univ. of Arizona \/ NASA Graphic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft today maneuvered into an orbit that takes it within 4,000 feet of the surface of Bennu, a diamond-shaped asteroid that\u2019s 70 million miles from Earth.<\/p>\n<p>The orbit sets a record for interplanetary travel. The quarter-mile-wide asteroid is now the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft, and the spacecraft is tracing the closest sustained orbit around a celestial body.<\/p>\n<p>Bennu beat out Comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the 2.5-mile-wide comet that the European Space Agency\u2019s Rosetta probe circled from 2014 to 2016. OSIRIS-REx orbits about a mile from Bennu\u2019s center, while Rosetta\u2019s orbit was 4 miles out from the comet\u2019s center.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s crucial eight-second burn of OSIRIS-REx\u2019s thrusters, built by Aerojet Rocketdyne in Redmond, Wash., was executed perfectly, said University of Arizona planetary scientist Dante Lauretta, who serves as the mission\u2019s principal investigator.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEntering orbit around Bennu is an amazing accomplishment that our team has been planning for years,\u201d Lauretta said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>OSIRIS-REx made its rendezvous with Bennu on Dec. 3 after a two-year cruise. Since the spacecraft\u2019s arrival, the mission team has been carefully gauging the near-Earth asteroid\u2019s mass distribution and lowering its orbit, step by step.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"OSIRIS-REx Begins Orbiting Asteroid Bennu\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CZtD-FRKSjg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The spacecraft has to follow such a close orbit in part because Bennu\u2019s gravitational pull is so weak. Earth\u2019s pull is about 200,000 times stronger, the mission team says. The closeness also facilitates the task that lies ahead for OSIRIS-REx: mapping the asteroid\u2019s surface in detail during a series of leisurely 62-hour orbits.<\/p>\n<p>The orbit will have to be adjusted periodically for stability\u2019s sake, said Dan Wibben, OSIRIS-REx maneuver and trajectory design lead at KinetX Aerospace in Simi Valley, Calif.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe gravity of Bennu is so small, forces like solar radiation and thermal pressure from Bennu\u2019s surface become much more relevant and can push the spacecraft around in its orbit much more than if it were orbiting around Earth or Mars, where gravity is by far the most dominant force,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>In February, the spacecraft will take on a series of even closer flybys to search for the best site to sample during a series of touch-and-go maneuvers scheduled for 2020.<\/p>\n<p>OSIRIS-REx\u2019s name is an acronym that stands for \u201cOrigins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer.\u201d The mission\u2019s objectives include characterizing the composition of the asteroid to shed more light on the makeup of the solar system\u2019s primordial material; identifying resources that could be useful to future space travelers; and helping scientists figure out how to divert a potentially threatening asteroid if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>The samples gathered by OSIRIS-REx are due to be delivered back to Earth for laboratory study in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows the OSIRIS-REx probe circling in to enter a close-in orbit around asteroid Bennu. (Univ. of Arizona \/ NASA Graphic) NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft today maneuvered into an orbit that takes it within 4,000 feet of the surface of Bennu, a diamond-shaped asteroid that\u2019s 70 million miles from Earth. The orbit sets a [&hellip;]<\/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":[4365,1519,1526,1527],"class_list":["post-18207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroid","tag-asteroids","tag-bennu","tag-osiris-rex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18207"}],"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=18207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}