On Sunday, September 23rd the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample touched down in the sandy plains of Utah. The capsule contains a sample from a 4.5 billion year old asteroid, named Bennu. This is a very exciting time for space scientists, after waiting for 7 years they can finally start studying the asteroid sample. 

7 Years of Waiting  

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft (Its a hard name to pronounce but maybe to make it easier you could go by its original name: The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer?) was launched in 2016, with a goal of collecting an asteroid sample from asteroid Bennu. NASA had chosen Bennu because of its age, it is 4.5 billion years old. The asteroid’s birth dates back to the early solar system. Space scientists wanted to study a small sample from Bennu in hope to unlock some mysteries of the early solar system. After launch the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was traveling at a speed of 5 miles per second, (Around 18,000 miles per hour!) but it still took it a two year trip to reach the asteroid. 

After successfully entering orbit around the Empire State Building sized object, the spacecraft began another two year mapping trip. From 2018-2020, OSIRIS-REx orbited and mapped the asteroid searching for a good place to take a sample. In late 2019, NASA announced that they had found a target that OSIRIS-REx could sample. 

In October 2020 the spacecraft’s robotic arm touched the surface of the asteroid for a split second, in that split second the robotic arm grabbed a rock sample that weighed around 200 grams (the plan was to grab a sample that weighted at least 60 grams) and then fired up its engines. After the spacecraft was back into orbit the robotic arm stored the sample in a protected capsule. In May 2021, OSIRIS-REx departed Bennu and started a course for Earth. 

Landing

After two years of traveling through space, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft finally came within 1 million miles of Earth, where it released its capsule into Earth’s atmosphere. OSIRIS-REx then departed by firing its engines to get away from Earth’s firefly atmosphere to continue its trek in space. 

The asteroid sample was protected from Earth’s atmosphere by a heat shield, after being clear of the burning atmosphere the capsule opened up a parachute and landed safely on the ground.

Studying The Sample

The asteroid sample was transported to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Where it will be studied by the top space scientists of the world in the upcoming weeks. The research team will study the asteroid sample in a room that has been modified so that germs and DNA from Earth can not attach itself onto the asteroid and give false readings in the testing process. NASA plans to release the research findings sometimes in mid to late October. 

A New Target 

Only OSIRIS-REx’s capsule with the sample got to come back to Earth. It was originally planned that the spacecraft remaining in space would be powered off. But all of the scientific instruments onboard are still in good health so NASA is recycling the mission into something new. OSIRIS-REx is currently heading for a new target called Apophis. It is a similar size to asteroid Bennu. Because of its new target OSIRIS-REx has now been renamed to OSIRIS-APEX ('APophis EXplorer') however it's still going to be another long joinery, the spacecraft wouldn't reach it until 2029!