NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flung a capsule the dimensions of a automobile tire onto a bombing vary in Utah on Sunday, delivering safely to Earth a pattern of the intriguing and doubtlessly hazardous asteroid Bennu.
The capsule, launched 4 hours earlier by the spacecraft, parachuted onto the muddy Utah Check and Coaching Vary. Restoration groups in 4 helicopters raced to the touchdown web site in a rigorously rehearsed effort designed to bag the capsule shortly to decrease the chance of contamination after which spirit it to a hangar on a army base. Will probably be flown Monday to the NASA Johnson Area Heart in Texas for future scientific research.
Mission managers, happy with the trajectory of the spacecraft, voted early Sunday morning to proceed with releasing the capsule, which spent 4 hours nearing Earth earlier than plunging into the ambiance. The father or mother spacecraft then fired thrusters to make sure that it will not wind up in Utah, however would as an alternative transfer on to a different goal, the asteroid Apophis, with a scheduled encounter in 2029.
