A mighty spacecraft is headed in direction of Earth, carrying rock and mud from a distant asteroid handy off to keen scientists ready to investigate the valuable pattern. The OSIRIS-REx mission lately fired its thrusters to set itself on a course in direction of the pattern drop-off website, with its rendezvous on Earth scheduled for later this month.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft accomplished a trajectory correction maneuver on Sunday, altering its velocity by roughly 0.5 miles per hour (underneath 1 kilometer per hour) relative to Earth, the house company announced on Monday. If it hadn’t pulled off this essential course correction, the spacecraft would have flown proper previous Earth.
OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to drop off the sample from asteroid Bennu on September 24. The spacecraft will launch a capsule carrying the pattern at 10:42 a.m. ET, which is able to land round 13 minutes after its launch in a 36-mile by 8.5-mile (58-km by 14-km) space on the Division of Protection’s Utah Check and Coaching Vary southwest of Salt Lake Metropolis, in accordance with NASA.
The spacecraft itself, however, isn’t staying for lengthy. OSIRIS-REx will ship its pattern and start making its method in direction of its subsequent mission, exploring asteroid Apophis. Accordingly, the mission might be renamed to OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer).
OSIRIS-REx launched in September 2016 and snagged a pattern from asteroid Bennu in October 2020. Since then, the spacecraft has been making its method again to Earth to drop off its valuable cargo. That is NASA’s first try at retrieving a pattern from an asteroid, which scientists will have the ability to analyze intently to assist uncover clues as to how life might have originated on Earth.
The spacecraft is at the moment at a distance of 4 million miles away from Earth (7 million kilometers), touring at a velocity of about 14,000 mph (about 23,000 km/hr) towards its drop off zone. OSIRIS-REx might have to hold out one other course correction maneuver on September 17, one week earlier than its massive supply is due.
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