A NASA spacecraft is poised to snag the largest sample of rocks from an asteroid ever

*An artistic translation of Osiris-REx about to call for a sample from an asteroid titled Bennu.*

A NASA spacecraft is poised to snag the largest try of rocks from an star-shaped ever

OSIRIS-REx is about to perform its signature tune feat

By Oct 19, 2020, 12:36pm EDT

Tomorrow, a US spacecraft more than than 200 million miles from Earth will creep up to an asteroid big than the Empire State Building and snag a handful of rocks from its opencut. If all goes to plan, the spacecraft will store the precious cache of rocks internal its abdomen, and will eventually conveyance the materials to Earth, where they can be designed by scientists in a lab.

The spacecraft larceny these rocks is named OSIRIS-Male monarch, contribution of the first-ever National Aeronautics and Space Administration commission tasked with returning samples of an asteroid back to Earth. Launched in September of 2016, OSIRIS-REx spent two geezerhood traveling to an asteroid called Bennu. Since it arrived in 2018, the spacecraft has been circling the asteroid and mapping information technology in torturesome detail, in order to find just the compensate spot to best dormy a sample.

Now, after years of planning and rehearsals, the Osiris-REx team is finally ready to grab some asteroid rocks. Their spacecraft will expand a thin robotic arm that will gently tap Bennu's airfoil, sweeping a tiny amount of material inside of the vehicle.

Bringing a pristine taste of asteroid material back home would be equal providing scientists with a baby depict of the Solar Arrangement. Researchers believe that asteroids have remained comparatively unchanged since the giving birth of the system's planets. By perusing these samples with lab equipment, they could memorise even more about the materials that were present at the dawn of the Solar System.

But none of that can go on if OSIRIS-REx doesn't pull away its most important task, which is why tomorrow is such a big daylight for the mission team. And since it takes rising to 18 minutes to go incomparable signal exterior to Osiris-REx at the moment, the spacecraft moldiness put to death everything aside itself.

"We actually have to exist hands-off," Sandy Freund, a mission support manager for OSIRIS-REx at Lockheed Martin, tells The Verge. "The vehicle has to be autonomous and able to involve care of everything on its own."

*The angulate Bennu, seen from OSIRIS-King.*

Gathering this sample is a difficult military operation — one that has required a net ton of extra provision and work over the last few years. That's because Bennu clothed to be nonpareil heck of a surprise. Data gathered away multiple telescopes earlier the spacecraft launched made it seem wish Bennu had a beach-alike surface, full with lots of fine grains that would be easy to collect. The engineers designed the fomite and its guidance software therewith kinda asteroid in mind.

Then Osiris-REx arrived at Bennu and snapped the first sprouted-close images of the angulate. "Once we started to see the opencut of Bennu, we knew that we were going to induce to change our approach," says Freund. Bennu turned impermissible to be much rougher and rockier than everyone had expectable, with boulders the size of buildings dotting its surface. Rocky terrain hind end be tricky to navigate around, and if the spacecraft comes in contact with a particularly overlarge Boulder, the vehicle could tip over and veer off run.

Notwithstandin, the team was ready for something unexpected to pop up at Bennu. "[During development] I put up a shape pose of Bennu, and I aforesaid, 'This is what we think we're designing for,' and I put a big interrogation point next to it and said, 'This is what we're going to get,'" Dante Lauretta, the PI of OSIRIS-King at the University of Arizona, tells The Verge. "We knew something was going to surprise us."

The extra-rocky Bennu meant that the OSIRIS-REx team had to add some extra software to their ballistic capsule. They figurative the mission, and dog-tired the overtime creating 3D maps of Bennu's surface, constructing a catalog of all the rocks, boulders, and bumps located along the asteroid. The fomite will swear heavily connected this catalog as a acknowledgment run when it comes close to Bennu to grab a sample.

"The spacecraft takes pictures, and information technology compares them to that catalog, and it will notice that: 'I expected this feature to exist Hera; it's actually shifted a measure to the west. That means my position is off,'" Lauretta says. In that scenario, OSIRIS-King will adjust its position and travel rapidly consequently. Such a system allows the spacecraft to be much more precise when it goes in for the final sample grab.

*The Nightingale crater on Bennu, with the relative size of it of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.*

The team too gave OSIRIS-REx its own mode of aborting the sample ingathering if things get chanceful. Included in its 3D maps is a and so-called "hazard correspondenc," which pinpoints all of the boulders and rocks that could pose a trouble for the spacecraft when the vehicle comes in about Bennu. If OSIRIS-REx sees itself upcoming single of these hazards, it can decide happening its own to stoppage the sample distribution work on and speed away from the asteroid.

Armed with these tools, the OSIRIS-REx ballistic capsule is just about ready to grab a sample from its target spot on Bennu — a large crater called Nightingale. It's filled with lots of boulders and toothed rock that could bungle the missionary station. But the team is willing to take the risk, since they suppose this area may be the best place to find water and organic material on Bennu. In fact, a recent study of the region plant that carbon paper molecules associated with biological life are belik lurking in the crater. That doesn't mean life is present tense on Bennu, but information technology could mean that the construction blocks for life could get on the asteroid — and that they were likewise around when the Solar System was exactly getting started.

This year, the OSIRIS-Male monarch team did two dress rehearsals, sending the spacecraft ungenerous to Bennu's grade-constructed as if it were about to grab a taste. On the second rehearsal, Osiris-Male monarch came within only 131 feet (40 meters) of the asteroid. Tomorrow at 6:12PM ET, the spacecraft leave do the real thing and travel all the way down to the surface with its robotic arm extended. As function of the plan, a cylindrical device at the end of the arm will gently tap a small dapple on Nightingale for just quint seconds, cathartic a blast of nitrogen gas. That air should push on a few rocks dormie into the cylinder, which will eventually be stored interior the Osiris-REx vehicle.

If for some reason OSIRIS-REx goes through the whole process and doesn't snaffle a sample, the squad prat certainly try again. They have plenty fuel to pay heed outgoing at Bennu until May if inevitable. The exclusively limiting ingredien is the nitrogen gas connected board the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx has just three bottles of nitrogen, and one filled bottle is released during for each one sample attempt. And then in reality, Osiris-REx can only go for a booming sample grab just ternary multiplication. "We won't fire a feeding bottle unless we make contact," says Freund.

There's also the possibility that OSIRIS-REx will come in shut and decide to abort due to a hazardous rock-and-roll. If that happens, and atomic number 102 atomic number 7 is released, so the squad still has the option to manage three rumbling sampling attempts. The problem, though, is that they'll probably need to pick another spot to sample along the asteroid. OSIRIS-REx will involve to fire skyward its thrusters to soar up out from Bennu in the event of a hazard, and that could take things a little messy.

"Information technology's probably going to push a bunch of stuff around and you're going to interchange the site," says Lauretta. That would whole invalidate the map the team made for Nightingale.

*OSIRIS-REx's sample distribution arm acquiring close to Bennu during its second rehearsal.*

The engineers have multiple backup sites, though. If Nightingale gets ruined, they'd move on to a website called Osprey, which is in reality a little less bumpy than the first target. And if Osprey gets ruined, there are other places to try, too. So really, tomorrow's sample grab is just the first attempt.

Simply if the sampling grab is a success, then the OSIRIS-Rex team up is poised to bring back one of the largest samples of material from an angular ever retrieved. Two Nipponese spacecraft — Hayabusa and Hayabusa 2 — have grabbed samples from asteroids before, only the hauls have been small; the first brought back to a lesser degree a milligram of rock musi samples, while the endorse single — presently on the way rearward to World — may return roughly 100 milligrams of samples. OSIRIS-REx is going to try to snag up to 60 grams (2.1 ounces) of material from Bennu, and the vehicle has the capability to grab busy 2 kilograms — our 4.5 pounds. And the space vehicle should be able to find just how boastfully of a sample it has grabbed, besides.

Depending along how large tomorrow's haul is, the OSIRIS-REx team may decide to do a second try to get even more material. But if they regulate they have up to 60 grams of real in the spacecraft's belly, then they'll start making the preparations to sink in, with plans to leave Bennu in March. That'll begin a two-year journey binding to Land, with the samples parachuting into the Utah desert in September of 2023.

It's an incredibly long and complex way to compeer back into the past, with numerous challenges cropping astir along the way. For one, all of the rehearsals for the sample grab have taken place this class during the COVID-19 general, with the OSIRIS-REx mission team a good deal more scattered than they had expected. Simply Lauretta says that everyone has adapted, and they're ready to undertake this enormous tax without gathering as planned. He as wel hopes that their success tomorrow will inspire others during what has been a bleak year.

"We Bob Hope that we'rhenium a piece of complete tidings in an era where that's a elflike bit in short append," says Lauretta. "This is something people can celebrate as a great accomplishment."