{"id":8167,"date":"2023-09-25T17:06:12","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T09:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/osiris-rex-capsule-safely-returns-nasas-first-asteroid-sample\/"},"modified":"2023-09-25T17:06:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T09:06:12","slug":"osiris-rex-capsule-safely-returns-nasas-first-asteroid-sample","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/osiris-rex-capsule-safely-returns-nasas-first-asteroid-sample\/","title":{"rendered":"OSIRIS-REx Capsule Safely Returns NASA&#8217;s First Asteroid Sample"},"content":{"rendered":"<p itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/Lock700_638312157080515697.png\" class=\"imageload removeImageattr fr-dib\" width=\"712\" height=\"377\" alt=\"OSIRIS-REx Capsule Safely Returns NASA's First Asteroid Sample\" data-original=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/Lock700_638312157080515697.png\" style=\"\"><meta itemprop=\"url\" content=\"https:\/\/cdn.satnow.com\/news\/Lock700_638312157080515697.png\"><meta itemprop=\"width\" content=\"712\"><meta itemprop=\"height\" content=\"377\"><\/p>\n<p>NASA&#8217;s OSIRIS-REx capsule safely landed in the desert, carrying the agency&#8217;s first asteroid sample from Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid. This sample, about the size of a cup, could unlock insights into the origins of organic compounds crucial for Earth&#8217;s life and planetary formation.<\/p>\n<p>Just prior to landing, the capsule entered the atmosphere traveling more than 27,000 mph. It then gently landed in the sands of the U.S. government&#8217;s Utah Test and Training Range.<\/p>\n<p>A specialized recovery team led by&nbsp;Lockheed Martin \u2013 who designed, built and currently flies the mission for NASA \u2013 comprising representatives from <em>NASA&#8217;s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/em>, <em>NASA Johnson Space Center<\/em>, and <em>the University of Arizona<\/em>, then secured the capsule.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The landing was safe, recovery was a huge success, and we&#8217;re thrilled that the next phase of this mission can now begin,&#8221; <strong>said Kyle Griffin, vice president and general manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin<\/strong>. &#8220;This particular sample return is monumental \u2013 scientists are about to open a time capsule with some of the earliest history of our solar system inside.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After approaching the capsule landing area in helicopters, the recovery team carefully searched for any hazardous material, sampled the neighboring soil, wrapped the 100-lb capsule in protective material, and attached it for transport via helicopter to an on-site cleanroom at the range. There, the sample is being processed for shipment on a military aircraft to curation team members at NASA Johnson in Houston, Texas, who will make it available for study.<\/p>\n<p>In total, about 60 people from NASA, the University of Arizona, Lockheed Martin and range personnel took part in the capsule landing and recovery efforts, plus a team of about 25 engineers operating the spacecraft from Lockheed Martin&#8217;s Mission Support Area in Denver.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Advanced Exploration Technology Testbed<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The OSIRIS-REx mission pioneered key technologies relevant to the future exploration of small bodies in our solar system, beyond its immediate follow-on mission. They include:<\/li>\n<li>Specific techniques for operating in microgravity<\/li>\n<li>Autonomous guidance to the surface of a small body with Natural Feature Tracking<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Unique sample collection from an asteroid, with the Lockheed Martin-invented, reverse-vacuum Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) device<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next Stop: Apophis<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Following the successful landing and showcase of key technologies, OSIRIS-REx will now be dubbed OSIRIS-APEX and enter its extended mission phase, beginning its journey to its follow-on mission target: near-Earth asteroid Apophis.<\/p>\n<p>To date, OSIRIS-REx&#8217;s major mission milestones include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Launching on Sept. 8, 2016, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.<\/li>\n<li>Arriving at Bennu on Dec. 3, 2018, where it conducted a two-year detailed survey of the asteroid.<\/li>\n<li>Extracting a sample from the asteroid by &#8220;tagging&#8221; it on Oct. 20, 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Departing the asteroid to head back to Earth on May 10, 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Click here to learn more about NASA&#8217;s OSIRIS-APEX mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA&#8217;s OSIRIS-REx capsule safely landed in the desert, carrying the agency&#8217;s first asteroid sample from Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid. This sample, about the size of a cup, could unlock insights into the origins of organic compounds crucial for Earth&#8217;s life and planetary formation. Just prior to landing, the capsule entered the atmosphere traveling more than [&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":[25],"class_list":["post-8167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-launch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8167"}],"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=8167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}