Richard Arnold: A long-awaited asteroid sample has landed in the US

An asteroid sample collected by NASA has touched down on Earth, giving scientists the opportunity to learn more about the origins of the solar system and capturing a piece of a massive space rock that has a chance of colliding with our planet in the future. It’s the first time the agency has accomplished such a feat. 

Seven years after launching to space, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth Sunday to deliver the pristine sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. 

OSIRIS-REx, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, lifted off in 2016 and began orbiting Bennu in 2018. The spacecraft collected the sample in 2020 and set off on its lengthy return trip to Earth in May 2021. The mission traveled 3.86 billion miles total to Bennu and back. 

The spacecraft dropped the sample capsule — containing an estimated 8.8 ounces of asteroid rocks and soil — from a distance of 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) above Earth’s surface early Sunday, and entered the planet’s atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET while traveling at a speed of about 27,650 miles per hour (44,498 kilometers per hour). 

Parachutes deployed to slow the capsule to a gentle touchdown at 11 miles per hour (17.7 kilometers per hour). The sample landed in the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range about 10 minutes after entering the atmosphere. 

“Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team. You did it,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson. “It brought something extraordinary, the largest asteroid sample ever received on Earth. This mission proves that NASA does big things, things that inspire us, things that unite us. It wasn’t mission impossible. It was the impossible that became possible.” 

OSIRIS-REx is continuing its tour of the solar system — the spacecraft has already set off to capture a detailed look at a different asteroid named Apophis. 

The mission now has a new name: OSIRIS-APEX, for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-APophis EXplorer. 

What happens after landing 

Four helicopters transported recovery and research teams to the landing site and conducted assessments to make sure the capsule wasn’t damaged in any way, said Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The team confirmed that the capsule was not breached during landing. 

Recovery teams, which have been training for the event for months, retrieved the capsule once it was safe, said Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, which partnered with NASA to build the spacecraft, provide flight operations and help recover the 100-pound capsule. 

The initial recovery team, outfitted with protective gloves and masks, ensured that the capsule was cool enough to touch, given that it reached temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) during reentry, Burns said. The team also ensured the capsule’s battery didn’t rupture and leak any toxic fumes. 

A science team collected samples from the landing site, including air, dust and dirt particles. 

“One of the key scientific objectives of OSIRIS-REx is to return a pristine sample and pristine means that no foreign materials hamper our investigation during sample analysis,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “As unlikely as it is, we do want to make sure any materials that are out there in the Utah range that may interact with the sample are well documented.” 

A helicopter carried the sample in a cargo net and delivered it to a temporary clean room near the landing site. Within this space, the curation team will conduct a nitrogen flow, called a purge, to prevent any of Earth’s atmosphere from entering the sample canister and contaminating it. The larger pieces of the capsule will be stripped away, said Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curation lead at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

A team will prepare the sample canister for transport on a C-17 aircraft to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston