After the many things that NASA's OSIRIS-REx team went through, its spacecraft has now gone full circle as it returned to Earth on Sunday with a capsule containing precious asteroid Bennu samples.
The next challenge for the team is to keep the samples safe, secure, and clean, away from the many earthly contaminants that could compromise it.
This mission was seven years in the making, seeing its 2016 launch towards the scattered asteroid's region, believed to bring information on the earlier time in the universe.
NASA OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Samples Now Safe and Secure
NASA announced that the capsule of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft is now safe and secure with the company.
It initially landed in the target area of the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range, located near Salt Lake City. The OSIRIS-REx team immediately transported the capsule and the samples to a temporary clean room set in a hangar.
"Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team on a picture-perfect mission - the first American asteroid sample return in history - which will deepen our understanding of the origin of our solar system and its formation," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
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'Nitrogen Purge' for Asteroid Bennu Samples-Why?
For now, NASA is placing the asteroid Bennu samples on a "nitrogen purge," a way to keep it free from many of the planet's contaminants that may compromise future studies.
This continuous flow of nitrogen to the samples would ensure its purity for future probes, with nitrogen best known as a gas that does not interact with most chemicals.
According to Nelson, "Bennu is a potentially hazardous asteroid, and what we learn from the samples will help us better understand the types of asteroids that could come our way."
NASA's OSIRIS-REx and the Mission
Asteroid 101955, best known as "Bennu," has seen various visits from NASA to collect samples from it, with the initial collection taking place almost three years ago in October 2020.
OSIRIS-REx team from the University of Arizona, NASA Goddard, Lockheed Martin, and other partners joined hands in controlling the spacecraft with the samples and closing the capsule to complete its mission.
In 2022, the team undertook another mission, and it was regarded as the touch-and-go (TAG) landing on Bennu's surface, tasked to obtain more samples from the floating rocks.
However, it was not an easy feat, as the team claimed that its lander saw a loose composition on Bennu's rocks, comparing it to a "plastic ball pit" where the spacecraft almost sunk.
The mission began in 2016, and after nearly seven years, the OSIRIS-REx mission concluded as the spacecraft already sent down its capsule containing the sample. The asteroid Bennu's samples will be subjected to studies in Utah before being moved to a new location.
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