On October 20, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft touched the surface of the Benue asteroid, the NASA team on Earth confirmed a successful touchdown at 6:08 pm EDT, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft touched the asteroid for 6 seconds, the OSIRIS-REx mission. Captured on October 20, during the KT Touch-and-Go (TAG) sample collection program, this series of 82 images depict the field of the SAMCAGER imager as NASA’s spacecraft approaches, and on the surface of the asteroid Bennu Touches down. This is the first spacecraft that has touched an asteroid. The mission aims to sample dust and pebbles from the surface of the Benue asteroid, and return to Earth.
OSIRIS-REx project manager Rich Burns states, “We will use a combination of data from TAG and post-TAG images and mass measurements to assess our confidence that we have sampled at least 60 grams If OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has collected 60 grams of sample, we will decide to prepare the sample on 30 October.
As we know, the Bennu is asteroid, shaped like a nut, the researchers believe that it is about 40 million years old. Researchers say that the Bennu asteroid was taking shape billions of years ago, so during that time it was breaking materials that could have helped to seed life on Earth. Researchers believe that this asteroid may contain many types of minerals, so Nasa Benue wanted a sample of the asteroid to know how life began on Earth?
OSIRIS-REx was launched on September 8, 2016 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, it reached the orbit of the Binu asteroid on December 3, 2018, and began orbiting the asteroid for the first time on December 31, 2018. On 20 October 2020, it touched the surface of the Beanu asteroid, sampling from the Beanu asteroid on September 24, 2023, when it parachuted the SRC into the URA’s western desert, where scientists would be waiting to collect it.