NASA’s Historic Asteroid Sample Return Caps Seven-Year Journey
NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft successfully completed a seven-year mission by returning samples from the asteroid Bennu. The spacecraft executed a flyby of Earth, releasing the sample capsule from a distance of 100,000 kilometers. The capsule landed in the Utah desert, containing rubble from Bennu and offering insights into the solar system’s origins.
This mission achieved a record for the largest sample returned from beyond the moon, surpassing Japan’s previous retrieval of a teaspoon of material from two asteroid missions. These particles are invaluable as they contain preserved building blocks from the solar system’s early days, shedding light on Earth’s formation and the emergence of life.
Osiris-Rex commenced its $1 billion mission in 2016, reaching Bennu in 2018. In 2020, it collected rubble from the asteroid using an extended robotic arm equipped with a vacuum, covering a staggering 6.2 billion kilometers.
The recovery involved helicopters and a temporary clean room at the Defence Department’s Utah Test and Training Range. The samples are destined for a laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, where they will join hundreds of kilogrammes of moon rocks collected during the Apollo missions. The capsule’s contents remain unknown, with engineers estimating around 250 grammes of Bennu material with a margin of error of approximately 100 ams. Precise measurement will require weeks of meticulous examination.
This achievement adds to NASA’s history of successful sample returns from deep-space robotic missions, including solar wind samples in 2004 and comet dust in 2006. Meanwhile, NASA’s plans to retrieve samples from Mars are progressing, with the Perseverance rover collecting core samples for transport to Earth.
Osiris-Rex continues to pursue the asteroid Apophis, with a planned rendezvous in 2029. These missions, apart from their scientific value, contribute to planetary defence efforts. Data from Osiris-Rex enhances our ability to potentially deflect asteroids on collision courses with Earth, similar to Bennu, which is expected to approach dangerously close to our planet in 2182.
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