Thursday, August 31, 2023

NASA Ready for Asteroid Sample

 The sample from OSIRIS-REx will touch down on September 24. Yesterday, NASA did a dress rehearsal, sending a helicopter up to drop a replica sample so that their teams could practice recovering it. They did this just outside Salt Lake City.

The 250 grams of material should give us insights into planetary formation and the origins of the solar system. After dropping off the capsule, if all goes well, OSIRIS-REx will head off to rendezvous with Apophis.

Their worst fear, of course, is that the sample will crash.

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