Snatching a portion of asteroid Bennu change into purported to be — successfully, difficult, but indubitably manageable: scope out the house rock, receive some flat spots, swoop down at one, approach support house.
Nonetheless when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at Bennu in December 2018, the scientists and engineers on the mission realized that the asteroid change into well-known, well-known rockier than they had expected. Admire, boulders in each place. Boulders as colossal as constructions. Boulders you raise out no longer prefer your like spacecraft to bang into.
OSIRIS-REx, which launched in 2016, has a lidar navigation machine that will seemingly perchance hold allowed the spacecraft to acknowledge boundaries primarily primarily based on the echoes of a lightweight beam the probe produced. Nonetheless once the mission published Bennu’s surface in all its rocky glory, scientists and engineers determined it change into time to approach support up with one thing unique.
Linked: OSIRIS-REx: NASA’s asteroid pattern-return mission in images
“Boulders as colossal as constructions. Boulders you raise out no longer prefer your like spacecraft to bang into.”
The end result’s a task the team is asking Natural Feature Tracking, which relies on the broad characterize database that OSIRIS-REx has constructed up in the months since it arrived at Bennu and commenced taking photos of the house rock from each angle that you just’re going to be in a field to evaluate.
As the probe embarks on a sampling strive, it will birth up taking silent extra such images, which its pc machine will mechanically compare to the archived photos exhibiting the scamper it will silent be following. If those views don’t line up, the spacecraft will mechanically retreat for one other strive, quite than likelihood injure on the perilous surface.
If the machine works as planned, it will silent boost OSIRIS-REx’s accuracy: Whereas its lidar machine change into handiest designed for accuracy interior a assortment 164 feet (50 meters) across, Natural Feature Tracking will seemingly be precise ample to take care of a target house precise 10% that size, NASA officers acknowledged in an announcement.
Scientists on the OSIRIS-REx mission hold chosen two target sampling sites on Bennu, dubbed Nightingale and Osprey. The mission’s window for sampling opens in leisurely August in tell to assemble determined that the spacecraft can leave Bennu next year. If all goes successfully, scientists must hold their house rock on Earth in 2023.
- Here’s NASA’s handiest search but (and closest, too!) of asteroid Bennu
- Shock! ‘Energetic asteroid’ Bennu is a uncommon particle-ejecting house rock
- How NASA’s asteroid pattern return mission will work (infographic)
E-mail Meghan Bartels at mbartels@house.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Notice us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Fb.
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