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The photo is pretty impressive!
The mission, called OSIRIS-REx, launched in 2016, to visit the asteroid Bennu in December 2018. The sampler, dubbed TAGSAM for Touch and Go Sampler Module, had a sampler arm and a one-way flap that sort of bounced on the asteroid, gathering material and shoving it down the flap. It bounced all over the surface of the asteroid getting different material.
Then it came back to Earth!
It landed in Utah in September of last year and was put into an isolation chamber and thoroughly documented. Lots of asteroid dust was removed from the surface of the container, in fact that material alone was greater than what was expected to be gathered from the mission! Before they got the canister open, they recovered 8.8 ounces of rock (250 grams), the goal of the mission was to recover at least 60 grams, so it was already Mission Accomplished.
The problem was that when they stated removing the bolts to open the canister that held the bulk of the sample collection, two bolts didn't want to come out! This was a very big problem because the canister was in a clean box, the kind where you stick your hand in gloves that are permanently attached to the side, that sort of thing. The box had an air lock so things could be moved in and out of it, but any tools used to work on the container had to be specifically approved to avoid contaminating the samples. What's the point of analyzing asteroid samples and finding flakes of steel only to later realize it came from a wrench that you used to open it? You'd look pretty stupid.
So anything new brought in to try to help open it had to be very space-constrained, had to be made out of very specific materials, and probably had a lot of other restrictions.
With the canister now open, the samples will be cataloged and 30% will be sent out to a team of international scientists for study.
But here's the cool and smart part: NASA is holding on to 70% of the samples for FUTURE STUDY. They're waiting for advances in technology and methods over the coming years/decades before they dig into the remaining samples! I think that's pretty smart. So we get instant(ish) gratification from studying what was brought back, from which we'll learn a lot, and we'll get more results at some later point as science improves, which will have a foundation of the previous study(ies) to build upon.
I really hope they are planning other OSIRIS-REx-like missions to take samples from other asteroids.
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-osiris-rex-canister-reveal-asteroid-sample-trove-1851184737
This article describes the problem encountered with the stuck bolts:
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-samples-bennu-stuck-container-1851102598
The mission, called OSIRIS-REx, launched in 2016, to visit the asteroid Bennu in December 2018. The sampler, dubbed TAGSAM for Touch and Go Sampler Module, had a sampler arm and a one-way flap that sort of bounced on the asteroid, gathering material and shoving it down the flap. It bounced all over the surface of the asteroid getting different material.
Then it came back to Earth!
It landed in Utah in September of last year and was put into an isolation chamber and thoroughly documented. Lots of asteroid dust was removed from the surface of the container, in fact that material alone was greater than what was expected to be gathered from the mission! Before they got the canister open, they recovered 8.8 ounces of rock (250 grams), the goal of the mission was to recover at least 60 grams, so it was already Mission Accomplished.
The problem was that when they stated removing the bolts to open the canister that held the bulk of the sample collection, two bolts didn't want to come out! This was a very big problem because the canister was in a clean box, the kind where you stick your hand in gloves that are permanently attached to the side, that sort of thing. The box had an air lock so things could be moved in and out of it, but any tools used to work on the container had to be specifically approved to avoid contaminating the samples. What's the point of analyzing asteroid samples and finding flakes of steel only to later realize it came from a wrench that you used to open it? You'd look pretty stupid.
So anything new brought in to try to help open it had to be very space-constrained, had to be made out of very specific materials, and probably had a lot of other restrictions.
With the canister now open, the samples will be cataloged and 30% will be sent out to a team of international scientists for study.
But here's the cool and smart part: NASA is holding on to 70% of the samples for FUTURE STUDY. They're waiting for advances in technology and methods over the coming years/decades before they dig into the remaining samples! I think that's pretty smart. So we get instant(ish) gratification from studying what was brought back, from which we'll learn a lot, and we'll get more results at some later point as science improves, which will have a foundation of the previous study(ies) to build upon.
I really hope they are planning other OSIRIS-REx-like missions to take samples from other asteroids.
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-osiris-rex-canister-reveal-asteroid-sample-trove-1851184737
This article describes the problem encountered with the stuck bolts:
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-samples-bennu-stuck-container-1851102598
