NASA chasing down asteroid to scoop up, bring back samples

Another 4 percent will be sent to the Canadian Space Agency as payment for a laser altimeter the spacecraft will use to map Bennu’s surface, and the Japanese Space Agency will receive one-half percent.

Scientists expect a detailed mapping and analysis of the primitive space rock, and the pristine sample returned from it, to advance understanding of early planetary formation and the kinds of materials that may have been helped form life on Earth. That will help understand how to stop it – if it heads toward Earth one day.

“So I like to say, ‘Don’t run out and buy asteroid insurance tonight, you’re not going to need it, ‘ ” Lauretta said. But NASA wants to get as much warning as possible for anything that threatens Earth. If the NASA effort succeeds, it will serve as a proof of concept for more ambitious attempts to exploit asteroids for scientific or commercial gain. Asteroids’ minerals could also be turned into fuel for deep-space missions, and their metals could be used to print 3D structures in space. When the arm makes contact, it will release a jet of nitrogen gas to loosen surface rocks and dust, and push at least 60 grams of material into a storage chamber.

Before the historic mission launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the NASA scientists will discuss matters about the asteroid mission on September 8th from 6:00 A.M to 2:00 P.M. These include the reasons why NASA is going to this asteroid and what mysteries it might unlock about how life started on Earth and whether life could have started elsewhere in the solar system.

What OSIRIS-REx won’t do. A 1967 United Nations treaty declares outer space, “including the moon and other celestial bodies”, to be off-limits to sovereign claims.

Despite this uncertainty, space agencies and space-mining companies continue to develop plans for the next generation of asteroid exploration. His answer was: “If it’s coming in three weeks, pray”.

NASA’s robotic asteroid hunter, Osiris-Rex, is created to scoop up pebbles and rock the size of gravel – anywhere from one to four or even five handfuls in a single swipe. Astronauts will explore the boulder in the 2020s. “Any team that’s planning on intimately interacting with an asteroid, whether they’re mining it or for future exploration, they’re going to take advantage of all the pioneering techniques we’re developing”.

And, a year ago, NASA was forced to quell growing fears that a monster asteroid was set to crash into our planet destroying humanity last September, after conspiracy theorists’ claims went viral online.

OSIRIS-REx is an acronym for Origins, Spectral Interpretations, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. The sample return capsule can hold more than 4 pounds of the rocky material, which scientists call regolith.

There’s also a practical side to the more than $800 million mission: planetary defense.

Bennu was named by North Carolina student Michael Puzio during a 2013 worldwide contest.

The name Bennu comes from the heron of Egyptian mythology. (Before Puzio stepped up, the rock was known in the scientific community as (101955) 1999 RQ36). The entire spacecraft will return to Earth’s vicinity by September 2023, at which point the Sample Return Capsule will separate from the spacecraft and reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, using atmospheric braking and two parachutes to return safely to the surface. After OSIRIS-REx enters orbit around Bennu, it will descend close to the surface and deploy a 3.35-metre-long arm equipped with a suction-cup-like device.