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  • 9/25/2023
The largest sample ever collected from an asteroid in space, and the first for NASA, landed in the Utah desert Sunday after a fiery final descent through Earth's atmosphere, seven years after the mission's launch. In a flyby of Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from 100,000 km (63,000 miles) out. The small capsule landed four hours later on a remote expanse of military land, as the mothership set off after another asteroid.

#NASA #OrisisRex #OrisisrexSpacecraft #NASAOrisisRexCapsule #LargestAsteroidSample #AsteroidBennu

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00:00 The largest sample ever collected from an asteroid in space and the first for NASA landed
00:12 in the Utah desert Sunday after a fiery final descent through Earth's atmosphere, seven
00:18 years after the mission's launch.
00:20 In a flyby of Earth, the Orisis-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from 100,000 km
00:26 out.
00:27 The capsule landed four hours later on a remote expanse of military land as the mothership
00:31 set off after another asteroid.
00:33 Touchdown of the Orisis-Rex sample return capsule.
00:37 A journey of a billion miles to asteroid Bennu and back has come to an end, a commentator
00:42 said on NASA's live video webcast of the landing.
00:46 Officials later said that the orange-striped parachute opened four times higher than anticipated,
00:51 around 20,000 feet, which led to the early touchdown.
00:54 Scientists estimate the capsule holds at least a cup of rubble from the carbon-rich asteroid
00:59 known as Bennu but won't know for sure until the container is opened.
01:03 Some spilled and floated away when the spacecraft scooped up too much and rocks jammed the container's
01:08 lid during collection three years ago.
01:11 Japan, the only other country to bring back asteroid samples, gathered about a teaspoon
01:15 in a pair of asteroid missions.
01:16 The pebbles and dust delivered on September 24 represent the biggest haul from beyond
01:21 the moon.
01:22 Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, the
01:25 samples will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed.
01:30 Orisis-Rex, the mothership, rocketed away on the $1 billion mission in 2016.
01:35 It reached Bennu two years later and, using a long stick vacuum, grabbed rubble from the
01:40 small round-ship space rock in 2020.
01:43 By the time it returned, the spacecraft had logged 6.2 billion kilometers.
01:48 NASA's recovery effort in Utah included helicopters as well as a temporary clean room set up at
01:53 the Defense Department's Utah Test and Training Range.
01:56 The samples will be flown on September 25 morning to a new lab at NASA's Johnson Space
02:00 Center in Houston.
02:02 The building already houses the hundreds of kilograms of moon rocks gathered by the Apollo
02:07 astronauts more than a half-century ago.
02:09 During a two-year survey, Orisis-Rex found Bennu to be chunky rubble pile full of boulders
02:14 and craters.
02:15 The surface was so loose that the spacecraft's vacuum arm sank a foot or two into the asteroid,
02:20 sucking up more material than anticipated and jamming the lid.
02:24 These close-up observations may come in handy late in the next century.
02:27 Bennu is expected to come dangerously close to Earth in 2182, possibly close enough to
02:32 hit.
02:33 The data glanced by Orisis-Rex will help with any asteroid deflection effort, according
02:38 to Mr. Loretta.
02:39 Orisis-Rex is already chasing the asteroid Apophis and will reach it in 2029.
02:45 This was NASA's third sample return from a deep-space robotic mission.
02:48 The Genesis spacecraft dropped off bits of solar wind in 2004, but the samples were compromised
02:54 when the parachute failed and the capsule slammed into the ground.
02:57 The Stardust spacecraft successfully delivered comet dust in 2006.
03:01 NASA's plans to return samples from Mars are on hold after an independent review board
03:06 criticized the cost and complexity.
03:09 The Martian rover Perseverance has spent the past two years collecting core samples for
03:13 eventual transport to Earth.
03:15 [END]
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