DENVER, Oct. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In the dark and
cold of deep space today, the Lockheed Martin-built
OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descended to the surface of an asteroid
and touched it with its robotic arm to collect a sample of its
rocky material. Although brief, the Touch-And-Go, or TAG, event was
years in the making.
A planetary remnant, asteroid Bennu, is about as tall as the
Empire State Building and contains pristine material from the
formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago
potentially including the organic molecular precursors to life on
Earth.
The Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) on
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touched the asteroid
surface and fired one of its nitrogen gas canisters to agitate and
collect the surface material through a filter in the round sampler
head. Then seconds later, the spacecraft slowly backed away from
the asteroid and is continuing to drift away until the sample is
assessed.
"Our nation has explored the solar system and landed on multiple
bodies, but this is the first time we have attempted to collect a
sample of an asteroid. Even though Bennu has posed many challenges,
the team made it look easy today," said Lisa Callahan, vice president and general
manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin. "Although
there's more to do before we are fully successful, the TAG event
went just as planned and I couldn't be prouder of the team."
Using multiple techniques, the team will now take a few days to
determine how much material, if any at all, was collected. The
mission's goal is to harvest at least 60 grams—about the size of a
candy bar—of regolith and potentially collect up to 2
kilograms.
Mission operations of the spacecraft, including today's TAG
collection event, were performed at Lockheed Martin Space's
facility near Denver. The flight
team has been operating the spacecraft since launch in September 2016 and operation around Bennu in
December 2018.
Today's TAG maneuver is the first time NASA has attempted to
collect material from an asteroid. OSIRIS-REx is NASA's third
robotic sample return mission and Lockheed Martin has built and
operated all three of those spacecraft.
If the proper amount of material was collected, the team will
stow the TAGSAM head, with material inside, into a sample return
capsule. The spacecraft will then depart Bennu in March 2021 and return the capsule and sample to
Earth on Sept.24, 2023.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt provides
overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and
mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of
the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal
investigator, and the University of
Arizona also leads the science team and the mission's
science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed
Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is
currently providing spacecraft operations. OSIRIS-REx is the third
mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages New Frontiers for the
agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information and images:
- Mission website: https://www.asteroidmission.org/
- Lockheed Martin OSIRIS-REx web page:
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/osirisrex
- Photos of OSIRIS-REx:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lockheedmartin/albums/72157669719016414
- Video about OSIRIS-REx:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd9cmMysX0A
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:
LMT) is a global security and aerospace company that employs
approximately 110,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged
in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and
sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
For additional information, visit our website:
www.lockheedmartin.com.
Please follow @LMNews on Twitter for the latest
announcements and news across the corporation.
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SOURCE Lockheed Martin