NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft set for historic touchdown on asteroid Bennu

[Graybeard]

https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasa-osiris-rex-set-for-touchdown-asteroid-bennu

By James Rogers | Fox News

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will make its historic touchdown on asteroid Bennu Tuesday, retrieving a sample from the space rock that will be returned to Earth.

OSIRIS-REx will make its ‘touch-and-go’ touchdown, with NASA noting that the mission will help unlock the secrets of the Solar System. “Asteroids are remnants of the building blocks that formed the planets in our solar system, and perhaps enabled life on Earth,” it explained in an email to Fox News.

The mission will also provide information that could help protect our planet from a possible collision with Bennu.

NASA FINDS PARTS OF ANOTHER ASTEROID ON ASTEROID BENNU

Bennu is about as tall as the Empire State Building, and could potentially threaten Earth in the next century, according to NASA. “Bennu has a 1:2700 chance of impacting Earth in the late 2100s, but this mission will also help us learn more about protecting ourselves if necessary,” the agency explains on its website.


This is a mosaic image of asteroid Bennu, from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

The van-sized spacecraft is aiming for the relatively flat middle of a tennis court-sized crater named Nightingale. Boulders as big as buildings loom over the targeted touchdown zone.



The touchdown is scheduled for 6:12 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.

NASA PICKS SITE ON ASTEROID BENNU WHERE IT WILL GRAB SPACE ROCK SAMPLE

The spacecraft will use a robotic arm to grab the sample from Bennu, which is about 200 million miles from Earth. Contact should last five to 10 seconds, just long enough to shoot out pressurized nitrogen gas and suck up the churned dirt and gravel. Programmed in advance, the spacecraft will operate autonomously during the unprecedented touch-and-go maneuver. With an 18-minute lag in radio communication each way, ground controllers for spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin near Denver can't intervene.


This illustration shows NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending toward asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

OSIRIS-Rex can try again to retrieve the sample if the first attempt isn't successful.

OSIRIS-REx, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, launched in September 2016 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The spacecraft reached Bennu in December 2018.


The craft is scheduled to depart Bennu next year and will deliver the asteroid sample to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023.

NASA recently revealed that parts of another asteroid, Vesta, have been spotted on the surface of Bennu.

In April 2019, Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully “bombed” asteroid Ryugu in the name of scientific research.


Earlier in 2019, Hayabusa2 briefly touched down onto Ryugu and fired a scientific research “bullet” into the space rock.

The Associated Press, Fox News’ Jennifer Earl and Chris Ciaccia contributed to this article. Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

[Argent 88]

Probably more interested in the minerals, the Japanese sure were with one of they're former probes

[Land_Owner]

This "news" from NASA is WEAK.  Where are their BOLD ideas?  Why are we spending $$BILLIONS grab-as-teroiding?

Newton's first Law of Universal Physics correctly states,

if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force

Newton's third Law of Universal Physics correctly states,

for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

So, the tiniest of external force from this artificial grab-and-go today WILL send the asteroid into another trajectory over its vast time dependent orbit throughout the Universe.  Where it will go after NASA grab-as-teroid's it, only speculation can conjure.  Are we ready for that?


Also, NASA seems to be seeking a redefinition for itself, searching for a new mission, what to do next following the demise of decades of spectacular and expensive Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Space Shuttles that has left the Agency with NOTHING substantial to do, no apparent forward view to account for the gutted Federal funding (thanks to numb nutz Barak Obama and the Democrats) directed to that former Federal Work Program that is too big to fail.  There are too many scientist and engineering lives at stake, too much infrastructure to maintain, and too much technology to invent - overcoming obstacles in space. 

It has been a DECADE (2011) since the Shuttle stopped flying to LEO.  Neither Public nor Private venture has stepped up to send a man into space from a U.S. launch site. 

What has NASA accomplished in that decade?  I personally KNOW they have spent a pile of $$Billions designing, constructing, redesigning, deconstructing, and reconstructing Mobile Launchers , movable Flame Deflectors, modified Flame Trenches, and Launch Pad infrastructure for heavy lift space vehicles (that do not exist) to go WHERE? 

NASA's lights and TV are on, shadows dance across back-lit walls, but NO ONE seems to be home...the Taxpayer still foots their bills.

[JustaShooter]

So, the tiniest of external force from this artificial grab-and-go today WILL send the asteroid into another trajectory over its vast time dependent orbit throughout the Universe.  Where it will go after NASA grab-as-teroid's it, only speculation can conjure.  Are we ready for that?

Although you are correct that even the smallest force will have an effect on the asteroids trajectory, it is the magnitude (mass times velocity) and direction of the force that will determine the effect on the trajectory.  The asteroid's mass is estimated at roughly 7.3×10^10 kg while the space craft has a mass of 2.1x10^3 KG, making the asteroid over 30 million times more massive. That's like trying to move a basketball by throwing an individual grain of sand at it. Also, since the object is to *land* on the asteroid, the relative velocity of the craft vs the asteroid will be near zero, and combined with the relative masses of the objects means the change in trajectory will be so slight it will not likely be measurable in our lifetimes even if applied at right angles to the current trajectory.

Believe it or not, the solar wind pressure on the asteroid and gravitational effects of other masses in the solar system will have more of an effect over that time scale than our puny craft landing on it will have.

In other words, it isn't enough to be concerned about.

[Argent 88]

That Japanese craft crashed and that didn't do anything.

[Land_Owner]

In other words, it isn't enough to be concerned about.

Probably not.  Had not thought through on the math of the masses as did you.  Well played.