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NASA's OSIRIS-REX space probe enters the orbit of the asteroid Bennu. Its mission is to collect rocks in the celestial body.
The device, launched in September 2016, reached its working position at a distance of 20 kilometers from the asteroid on December 3 of last year.
It's official! I am in the orbit of the asteroid Bennu – the smallest celestial body around which the spaceship has already rotated. My route around the asteroid also set a new record for the nearest orbit of a planetary body by a spaceship
As part of the initial study of the Asteroid, the aircraft made several flights within a seven-kilometer radius of Bennu, gathering information on the mbad and movement of the asteroid. Already in the orbital phase, it will make a 50-hour ride around the asteroid and approach the celestial body for a distance of 1.4 km. In the following steps, the device will obtain information to determine the most accurate location where sampling of a sample can be performed and then returned to Earth.
According to the developers, the probe will transport to the surface of Bennu, the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go sample acquisition mechanism), which has a retractable three-meter "arm", in order to suck up particles of material from the body surface of the space in a special capsule. The developers hope that with the help of compressed gas, it will be possible to extract at least 60 grams of rocks that will be sent to Earth by 2023.
The 500-meter-diameter space body, discovered by scientists at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology's LINEAR project, will move closer to Earth in 2182.
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