In just two months, the asteroid sample collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx will land on Earth. On September 24, a capsule that looks like it came straight out of a ’60s sci-fi show will fly through the atmosphere and land in the Utah desert. The team worked on retrieving the capsule several times, and last week they managed to do the most realistic full-rigger rehearsal ever, right where the capsule was supposed to fall.
This impressive rehearsal took place at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Ground, approximately 130 kilometers southwest of Salt Lake City. OSIRIS-REx will drop the capsule containing the sample and continue flying towards a different asteroid, the notoriously dangerous Apophis. Due to the capsule’s lack of a guidance system, it will land somewhere within an elliptical area of 58 by 14 kilometers.
The team practiced collecting soil samples, preparing the capsule for transport, and even flying the helicopter to the point where the capsule was to be returned. Once transported to this spot, the capsule will be prepared and taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where its valuable cargo will begin to be analyzed.
Sandy Freund, Lockheed Martin’s OSIRIS-REx mission operations manager, said in a previous statement that “the science box will open here. It will open in a special clean room and in a sealed box,” he said, adding: “The first unearthing of the specimen will be in Houston.”
On October 20, 2020, the spacecraft flew towards the surface of Asteroid Bennu to collect some soil. The aim of this mission was to get at least 60 grams of material, but the mission was very successful. It collected so much material that some large rocks blocked the sampler head, causing some material to flow out. As a result, NASA estimates that between 400 and 1,000 grams of material was collected.
Asteroid Bennu was chosen because it is believed that little has changed since the formation of the Solar System. Studying their properties can be like opening a time capsule left over from the birth of planets.
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