NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
After almost 5 years in area, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on its method back to Earth with an abundance of rocks and dust from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
On Monday, May 10, 2021, at 4: 23 p.m. EDT the spacecraft fired its primary engines complete throttle for 7 minutes – its most considerable maneuver given that it came to Bennu in 2018. This burn thrust the spacecraft far from the asteroid at 600 miles per hour (almost 1,000 kilometers per hour), setting it on a 2.5-year cruise towards Earth.
After orbiting the Sun two times, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is because of reach Earth on September 24, 2023. Upon return, the pill including pieces of Bennu will separate from the remainder of the spacecraft and get in Earth’s environment. The pill will parachute to the Utah Test and Training Range in Utah’s West Desert, where researchers will be waiting to obtain it.
Mission staff member commemorate OSIRIS-REx’s effective primary engine burn that sets the spacecraft on its 2.5-year journey to Earth with samples from asteroid Bennu. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
