NASA Just Successfully Touched Down on an Asteroid

 NASA just landed a spacecraft on an asteroid and, if everything went as planned, sucked up a sample of dust and rock from the surface.

From 200 million miles away, NASA and its engineering partner, Lockheed Martin, instructed the spacecraft to descend to the surface of an area rock called Bennu.

In just 5 to 10 seconds, the probe should have collected samples from the asteroid's surface. It's set to bring these pieces of Bennu back to Earth later.

OSIRIS-REx, because the spacecraft is understood (short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer), completed this "touch-and-go" operation on Tuesday evening.

The spacecraft beamed back a confirmation that it had landed on Bennu's surface. When the signal reached Earth at 6:11 pm ET, about 18 minutes after the particular touchdown, Mission Control erupted in cheers and applause.

"Transcendental. I am unable to believe we actually pulled this off," Dante Lauretta, the mission's man of science, said during NASA's live broadcast of the operation. "The spacecraft did everything it absolutely was purported to do."

It will take some days to work out whether the probe picked up enough rock. The goal was to induce a minimum of one 2.1-ounce (60-gram) sample, which is a couple of small bags of potato chips' worth of mass.

OSIRIS-REx has been orbiting Bennu since December 2018, scanning the asteroid and collecting the maximum amount of data as possible. It's set to depart in March 2021, samples in tow, then reach Earth on September 24, 2023.

The mission's research might be crucial over the following 100 years since Bennu's path puts it in danger of crashing into Earth.

"Bennu is one in every of the foremost potentially hazardous asteroids, with a non-negligible chance of impacting the world at some point within the 22nd century," Lauretta said in September.

"Part of our science investigation is about understanding its orbital trajectory, refining the impact probability, and documenting its physical and chemical properties in order that future generations can develop an impact-mitigation mission if that's necessary."

There are other important reasons to review Bennu: As new missions go deeper into space, they'll have to make pit stops to mine asteroids for resources like water, which might be split into oxygen and hydrogen for a charge. the info NASA is gathering from Bennu could help inform future asteroid-mining attempts.

OSIRIS-REx is additionally, in a sense, a soul-searching mission. Asteroids are bits of ancient rock from the beginnings of the scheme 4.5 billion years ago. The leftover material that made the rocky planets - Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars - coalesced over time into asteroids, where it's largely preserved in its original form.

NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona A rotating mosaic of Bennu composed of images captured by Osiris-Rex over four hours on December 2, 2018.

A rotating mosaic of Bennu captured by OSIRIS-REx in 2018. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona))

Some theories posit that asteroids delivered key ingredients always to ancient Earth. On Bennu, scientists may find signs of these ingredients, cluing them into how life arose on Earth (and possibly on Mars or Venus as well).

If successful, this mission is going to be one of the primary to return samples of primordial rock. Japan's Hayabusa-2 spacecraft is additionally set to bring back asteroid samples in December.

"This is all about understanding our origins, addressing a number of the foremost fundamental questions that we ask ourselves as human beings: Where did we come from? And are we alone within the universe?" Lauretta said.

NASA's spacecraft dropped 3,000 feet to blast asteroid dust

OSIRIS-REx's early data revealed a controversy for the mission: Bennu is far rockier than NASA thought. Landing during a field of boulders puts a spacecraft in danger of tipping over and getting stranded.

To target the smoothest possible terrain on the asteroid, the OSIRIS-REx mission team chose a landing spot that's much smaller than originally planned. Its leeway is simply 26 feet (8 meters), whereas the initial plan expected it to own 164 feet (50 meters).

That means the spacecraft, which is about the scale of a 15-passenger van, had to focus on a vicinity roughly adequate six parking spaces on the fast-spinning asteroid.

The landing spot may be a relatively smooth area named Nightingale that's covered in a very fine rocky dust called regolith. this can be the fabric that OSIRIS-REx attempted to lift out on Tuesday.

The spacecraft slowly descended about 3,280 feet (1 kilometer), maneuvering past a two-story boulder that mission controllers call "Mount Doom". OSIRIS-REx has twice rehearsed this descent, practicing "basically everything apart from the ultimate two minutes," said Mike Moreau, a project manager.

The sequence goes like this: The spacecraft's thrusters fire, pushing it out of its kilometer-high orbit above Bennu. Then the probe deploys its sample-collection arm and points its navigation camera to the asteroid's surface. About 3 1/2 hours later - and about 410 feet above the surface - the spacecraft fires its thrusters again to push itself toward the landing site. After another 10 minutes and another 260 feet of descent, the spacecraft burns its thrusters to maneuver into a certain landing spot.

The whole operation seems to own gone in step with that plan.

If the spacecraft's instruments had detected hazardous rocks at its landing point, the probe would have initiated a back-away burn just 16 feet above the surface.

But the spacecraft appears to possess reached Bennu's surface with its sample-collection arm stretched down. Through this arm - if collection went consistent with a plan - the spacecraft shot nitrogen gas out of a bottle, stirring up the regolith beneath it. within the disturbance, some material should are caught within the collection tool at the tip of the arm.

Shortly after touchdown, OSIRIS-REx fired its thrusters to push itself aloof from Bennu.

NASA will decide whether to stow the sample or try again

Once the spacecraft is back in Bennu's orbit, it'll take some days for NASA mission controllers to analyze the regolith sample is collected. If there are enough rock and dirt, mission leaders will command the spacecraft to store the sample during a pod for its return to Earth.

But if the spacecraft has but 2.1 ounces of regolith, it'll try again in January, targeting a backup site on a distinct part of the asteroid.

"By far the foremost likely outcome that we'll wear October 20 is we'll contact the surface and are available away with an oversized sample that exceeds our minimum requirements," Moreau said in September.

"But Bennu has thrown us a variety of curveballs."

OSIRIS-REx is carrying three bottles of nitrogen for stirring up dust, allowing it three attempts to descend to Bennu's surface and collect a correct sample.

The Bennu sample should reach Earth in 2023

When OSIRIS-REx returns to Earth in 2023, it should shoot the capsule containing the samples into Earth's atmosphere. The samples should parachute into the Utah desert for NASA to choose up.

"It's visiting probably be Christmas in September," Lauretta said. "The best present I've ever had, these pristine samples from asteroid Bennu that I have been dreaming - literally dreaming - about for, at that time, almost 20 years of my life."

Scientists will set about analyzing the sample, but NASA will preserve a number of the regolith for future study.

"These samples returned from Bennu also will allow future planetary scientists to ask questions we won't even consider today," said Lori Glaze, the director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, "and to be ready to use analysis techniques that are not even invented yet."