US Space Agency’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft begins its long return trip to Earth – NASA, having collected valuable specimens from the asteroid Benoit, which are expected to arrive on our planet in September 2023.
The samples in a capsule will fall in an isolated area of the US state of Utah, while the spacecraft – the first US asteroid collection mission – will cover a distance of 320 million kilometers until its return.
75% of the samples will be kept at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for future study, while the rest will be distributed to scientific laboratories around the world, according to AMPE.
Benoit, with a diameter of 500 meters, was created in the early days of our solar system and the analysis of samples from its soil will help scientists better understand the evolution of even the Earth itself.
The OSIRIS-Rex, costing about $ 800 million and the size of a minivan, built by Lockheed Martin, was launched in 2016 and reached the asteroid in 2018. He first found traces of hydrogen and oxygen on the rocky surface of Benoit, while last October he successfully collected a large amount of “virgin” material. He then stayed close to the asteroid until the return journey began.
The spacecraft itself, after dropping the capsule, is likely to be sent by NASA to another space mission, perhaps on a “date” in 2029 with the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophy. Because Benoit is also considered a potentially dangerous person asteroid, the NASA mission also had a planetary defense test dimension in the event of a future need to protect Earth.
It was preceded in December 2020 by the return of a sample from the asteroid Ryugu to Earth from the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2, while in the same month last year the Chinese spacecraft Chang’e 5 brought samples from the Moon.
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