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Tuesday 05 Nov 2024
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LOCAL EDITION
Recovery team members carry a space capsule carrying NASA’s first asteroid samples on September 24, 2023 to a temporary clean room at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. (Photo/AFP)
A seven-year space voyage came to its climactic end when a NASA capsule landed in the desert in the US state of Utah, carrying to Earth the largest asteroid samples ever collected.
When they learned that the capsule's main parachute had deployed, "I literally broke into tears," the Osiris-Rex mission's principal investigator Dante Lauretta told a press conference.
"That was the moment I knew we made it home... For me the real science is just beginning."
The 3.86-billion-mile (6.21-billion-kilometer) journey marked the United States' first sample return mission of its kind, the US space agency said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
NASA chief Bill Nelson hailed the mission and said the asteroid dust "will give scientists an extraordinary glimpse into the beginnings of our solar system."
The Osiris-Rex probe's final, fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere was perilous, but NASA managed to engineer a soft landing at 8:52 am local time (1452 GMT), in the military's Utah Test and Training Range.
Better understanding
Four years after its 2016 launch, the probe had landed on the asteroid Bennu and collected what NASA estimated is roughly nine ounces (250 grams) of dust from its rocky surface.
Even that small amount, NASA says, should "help us better understand the types of asteroids that could threaten Earth."
The sample return "is really historic," NASA scientist Amy Simon told AFP. "This is going to be the biggest sample we've brought back since the Apollo moon rocks" were returned to Earth.
Osiris-Rex released its capsule early Sunday from an altitude of m ore than 67,000 miles.
The fiery passage through the atmosphere came only in the last 13 minutes, as the capsule hurtled downward at a speed of more than 27,000 miles per hour, with temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).
NASA images showed the tire-sized capsule on the ground in a desert wash, with scientists approaching the device and taking readings.
Eventually they concluded the capsule was not breached, meaning its all-important air-tight seal remained intact, avoiding any contamination of the sample with desert sands.
The team then lifted the capsule by helicopter to a nearby "clean room."
Meanwhile, the probe that made the space journey fired its engines and shifted course away from Earth, NASA said, "on its way" for a date with another asteroid.
On Monday, the sample heads to Johnson Space Center in Houston for additional study, and NASA plans to announce its first results at a news conference October 11.
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Source: TRT
