On September 24, samples collected three years ago by the Osiris Rex probe from the asteroid Bennu should arrive in the Utah desert. The desired sample is “a piece of primordial rock that has witnessed the entire history of the solar system,” said NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen.

The Osiris Rex probe is the one that managed to take samples from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020, and in May 2021 began its long journey to Earth. This is one of the most difficult missions of its kind, considering that several maneuvers have to go perfectly, and we are talking about huge distances.

On September 24, when the Osiris Rex probe is at a distance of 102,000 km from Earth, it will release a special capsule that will bring samples from Bennu. This capsule will enter the Earth’s atmosphere in four hours and should reach the ground in another 13 minutes.

The scientific community is anxiously awaiting the samples, especially since it involves 250 grams of dust and rock, which is a significant amount.

The mission was launched seven years ago. More precisely, the Osiris-Rex probe was launched in September 2016, arrived at asteroid Bennu two years later and mapped it for a year, and NASA staff then picked the spot where the probe touched the surface in an attempt to take soil samples. . On October 20, 2020, samples were successfully collected.

Asteroid Bennu is almost half a kilometer in diameter and is estimated to have appeared 4.5 billion years ago, shortly after the birth of the solar system. “Asteroids are kind of time capsules floating in space, and they can give us fossil samples from the early days of the solar system,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division.

The samples should arrive on Earth after 10:00 a.m. (5:00 p.m. Romanian time) on Sunday at a US Army base in the Utah desert.

It is necessary to overcome several stages. On September 10, the probe changed course after briefly restarting its engines.

The trajectory correction maneuver changed the probe’s speed very little, but without it the cargo collected from Bennu would have passed Earth and been lost.

Before the samples reach Earth, the capsule will have to decelerate for 13 minutes from a speed of more than 44,000 km/h to below 20 km/h so that the rock and soil samples arrive in good condition. A special parachute will also be used for deceleration, and the capsule has a super-resistant heat shield, since the temperature is very high when entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Osiris Rex spacecraft will not return to Earth, but after releasing the sample capsule from Bennu, it will embark on another long mission, this time to the asteroid Apophis, where it is expected to arrive in 2029.

Sources: NASA; space.com, Telegraph