THE RETURN OF THE OSIRIS-REX SPACE PROBE
The asteroid “Bennu” is considered as an astonishing object due to the size and the fact that it's very close to Earth orbit. For that reason, NASA's OSIRIS-REx programme was designed so as to create a space probe to recollect some samples of the asteroid.
Last Tuesday, at 7pm GTM +8, the vessel made its first contact with the asteroid, and was allowed to pick up certain amount of rocks and dust from the object. Some minutes later, due to the distance of the asteroid and the Earth at this moment, the first images and the video of the contact arrived here, and they wereshown by NASA live on the online platform of Youtube.
Unfortunately, the day after the recollection, the spacecraft started to lose part of the samples collected, that weight 60 grams approx. The problem was solved early this week, and the spacecraft is now returning home, and it is previsted to arrive in 2023.
REFERENCES
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Is Overflowing with Asteroid Samples. (26 de October de 2020). Obtenido de https://bit.ly/35FNjCm
BBC News. (24 de October de 2020). Osiris-Rex: Nasa probe risks losing asteroid sample after door jams. Obtenido de https://bbc.in/3oAH1MZ
NASA. (23 de October de 2020). NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Collects Significant Amount of Asteroid. Obtenido de https://go.nasa.gov/3jCOfML
This article has been written by LUKJANIEC Juan Manuel, ORTEGA Lautaro and SÁNCHEZ Santiago.
