The probe will drop off surface samples from asteroid Bennu on Sunday morning, aiming for a parachute-assisted landing in the Utah desert.
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The plan is for the spacecraft to drop off its precious cargo during a close flyby of Earth, after which the capsule containing the asteroid samples will perform a parachute-assisted landing at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The capsule has to land within a 37-mile by 9-mile ellipse about 13 minutes after it is released by the spacecraft.OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016, and reached asteroid Bennu in December 2018.
This is NASA’s first attempt at retrieving a sample from an asteroid and it’s been a long time in the making. Bennu is a small, near-Earth asteroid that makes a close pass to Earth every six years or so. Scientists believe Bennu might have broken off from a much larger carbon-rich asteroid about 700 million to 2 billion years ago, and drifted much closer to Earth since then.
After delivering its sample to Earth, OSIRIS-REx will begin making its way towards its next mission, exploring asteroid Apophis. Accordingly, the mission will be renamed to OSIRIS-APEX .
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