OSIRIS-REx to leave asteroid in May to deliver samples

NASA’s asteroid-sampling OSIRIS-REx probe will spend two extra months at its target space rock before heading back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx snagged lots of dirt and rock from the 1,640-foot (500-metre) wide near-Earth asteroid Bennu in October 2020

– so much stuff, in fact, that the probe’s sample collector was overflowing.

The original mission plan called for OSIRIS-REx to leave Bennu’s vicinity with this precious cargo on 3 March. But the departure date has been pushed back to 10 May, NASA officials announced on Tuesday 26 January. “Leaving Bennu’s vicinity in May puts us in the ‘sweet spot,’ when the departure manoeuvre will consume the least amount of the spacecraft’s onboard fuel,” said Michael Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Nevertheless, with over 954 kilometres (593 miles) per hour of velocity change, this will be the largest propulsive manoeuvre conducted by OSIRIS-REx since the approach to Bennu in October 2018,” Moreau added.

The new plan doesn’t change the arrival time for the Bennu samples. They’re still scheduled to come down to Earth, in a special return capsule, in northern Utah on 24 September 2023. That touchdown will complete a recent sample-return trifecta for humanity: pristine samples from the Moon and the asteroid Ryugu came down to

Earth last month courtesy of China’s Chang’e 5 mission and Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe, respectively.