NASA’s asteroid-sampling spacecraft Osiris-Rex will go look at ‘the mess it made’

In October 2020, NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft took a chew out of asteroid Bennu. Earlier than Osiris-Rex returns to Earth to ship its bounty, it may revisit the scene of the heist.The asteroid-investigating spacecraft will carry out one last very shut flyby of Bennu on Wednesday to find “the extent of the mess it made,” NASA announced last week.  

Osiris-Rex was a little bit grasping in the course of the pattern seize operation, selecting up an overflowing quantity of gravel that needed to be stowed before anticipated. It left a mark on the asteroid.

“The Osiris-Rex crew determined so as to add this final flyover after Bennu’s floor was considerably disturbed by the pattern assortment occasion,” NASA said. “Throughout landing, the spacecraft’s sampling head sunk 1.6 toes (48.eight centimeters) into the asteroid’s floor and concurrently fired a pressurized cost of nitrogen gasoline.” The thrusters fired to again Osiris-Rex away additionally disturbed the floor.

NASA has scheduled the flyover for April 7 with the aim of capturing photos of the gathering web site from an in depth distance of simply 2.Three miles (3.7 kilometers) away.

Osiris-Rex will proceed to hold round at Bennu till Could 10, when it should kick off a two-year return journey again to Earth. The bits of Bennu will likely be delivered to scientists by the use of a Pattern Return Capsule jettisoned by the spacecraft. 

Within the meantime, NASA will get to match the before-and-after photos of the pattern web site to see simply how huge of a tattoo Osiris-Rex left on Bennu.

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