NASA's OSIRIS-REx has completed its final rehearsal of all maneuvers required by the spacecraft for its planned touchdown on the asteroid Bennu in October. It will then collect a sample from the asteroid and bring it back to the Earth, which is the first time a NASA to do so.
According to CNN, Bennu will pass close to Earth at 179 million miles from Earth, closer than the moon. It will be unlikely to hit the planet, but scientists hope to get essential data to know the best ways to repel near-Earth asteroids. Moreover, this mission will also look into how these space objects impact the Earth and how planets are formed.
The OSIRIS-REx will reach the asteroid's surface in October and touch down for five seconds using its sampling arm. The spacecraft will then expel pressurized nitrogen to dislodge the surface and collect samples from the asteroid. After the sample collection, OSIRIS-REx will back away from the site and leave Bennu in 2021. It is expected to return to Earth with about 30 sugar packets of asteroid samples on September 24, 2023.
NASA's spacecraft has been orbiting and mapping the asteroid's surface since its arrival in December 2018.
Read also: NASA OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Reveals Asteroid Bennu's Rocks Are Being Cracked By Sunlight
OSIRIS-REx TAG Rehearsals
The OSIRIS-REx did its Touch-and-Go (TAG) maneuvers on August 11, which is how the spacecraft will collect samples from the asteroid at about 131 feet above the Nightingale, the selected site at the asteroid. It is inside a crater at Bennu's northern hemisphere. It took about four hours to complete the rehearsal for doing three of the four maneuvers required in collecting a sample.
During the rehearsal, signals travel at approximately 16 minutes, the one-way light time between Earth and the spacecraft. This makes it impossible to give live commands from the ground while OSIRIS-Rex' low gain antenna will be solely used to transmit data for just 40 bits per second.
This means that while the mission's team can monitor the spacecraft's vital signs, they could only collect the images and data after the rehearsal is completed. The same process will happen in October.
Also, the space ship performed a "Checkpoint" burn during the rehearsal at 410 feet away. This allowed the spacecraft to check its position and velocity if it needs to make adjustments before moving closer to the asteroid. To do so, OSIRIS-REx must burn or fire its thrusters to get closer to the asteroid's surface with mere .6 miles distance between the asteroid.
It has also achieved a "Matchpoint" burn wherein the OSIRIS-Rex, and Bennu's rotation is at the same phase so that the spacecraft can fly over the sample site.
"Now that we've completed this milestone, we are confident in finalizing the procedures for the TAG event. This rehearsal confirmed that the team and all of the spacecraft's systems are ready to collect a sample in October," OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta said in a statement.
Lauretta is a University of Arizona planetary science and cosmochemistry professor.
Read also: NASA Presents Asteroid Bennu: The First High-Resolution Image of a Planetary Body
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Written by CJ Robles
