NASA announced on Thursday that it has successfully released more material sampled from an asteroid, after overcoming two stubborn fasteners that had trapped it for months. The material was collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission, which traveled nearly 4 billion miles to reach the near-Earth asteroid called Bennu.
OSIRIS-REx stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer. It is NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, and one of the most ambitious and complex space exploration projects ever undertaken. The mission aims to bring back at least 2.1 ounces (60 grams) of pristine material from Bennu, a carbon-rich asteroid that is believed to be a remnant of the early solar system.
OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016 and arrived at Bennu in December 2018. It spent nearly two years orbiting and mapping the asteroid, selecting a suitable landing site, and rehearsing the sample collection maneuver. On October 20, 2020, OSIRIS-REx touched down on Bennu for about six seconds, using a robotic arm with a storage container at one end to scoop up rocks and dust from the surface. The mission team was thrilled to discover that the container had captured more than enough material, exceeding their expectations.
A Challenge to Secure the Asteroid Samples
However, the mission team also faced a challenge: some of the material remained out of reach in a capsule hidden inside the robotic arm, called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM). The capsule is held shut by 35 fasteners, but two of them proved too difficult to open. The team had to devise a way to safely remove the fasteners without damaging or contaminating the samples.
The team worked for months to develop new tools from surgical steel, the hardest metal approved for use in the pristine curation gloveboxes where the samples are handled. The tools had to function within the tightly-confined space of the glovebox, limiting their height, weight, and potential arc movement. The team also tested the tools in a rehearsal lab, gradually increasing the torque applied to ensure the tools could successfully remove the unyielding clasps.
A Success Story for NASA and the Scientific Community
On Thursday, the team announced that they had finally unlocked the remainder of the asteroid sample, after a monthslong process. The team was overjoyed with the success, and praised the resilience and creativity of the curation team. The team will now proceed to photograph, extract, and weigh the hidden cache, and then analyze it for scientific purposes.
The analysis of the material from Bennu that the team had already harvested last fall revealed that the samples contained abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals, as well as carbon. These findings support the current theory that asteroids like Bennu delivered water and organic molecules to Earth billions of years ago, making our world habitable.
The mission’s thrilling finale will take place on September 24, 2023, as a capsule containing the Bennu samples touches down in Utah’s West Desert. The samples will then be transported to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will be stored and distributed to researchers around the world. The OSIRIS-REx mission will provide unprecedented insights into the origin and evolution of our solar system, and the potential for life beyond Earth.
