[ad_1]
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, currently positioned around the tiny asteroid 101955 Bennu, has transmitted its capture closer to the surface of the asteroid.
NASA has already released OSIRIS-REx photos taken with NavCam Navigation Camera 1 on January 17, 2019 at a distance of about 1.6 km to its surface. According to The Verge, NASA released a photo taken on June 13 from a circular orbit of only 690 meters above Bennu, described as being the closest a spacecraft has put into orbit in the solar system.
This is the complete picture:
According to the statement:
This image of the asteroid Bennu was captured on June 13, 2019, shortly after NASA's OSIRIS-REx space probe performed its second orbital insertion maneuver. From the point of view of the space ship in orbit, half of Bennu is illuminated by the sun and the other half in the shade. The largest rock of Bennu can also be seen protruding from the southern hemisphere. The image was taken at a distance of 690 meters above the surface of the asteroid by NavCam 1, one of the three navigation cameras constituting the TAGCAMS suite (Touch-camera system). and-Go) of the space shuttle. At this distance, details of a width up to 0.5 meters can be resolved in the center of the image.
OSIRIS-REx was launched in 2016 and arrived in Bennu in December 2018. It has five data collection instruments and is intended to carry out NASA's first mission with samples of an asteroid.
OSIRIS-REx had already marked the story: Bennu is about 520 meters in diameter, making it the smallest object orbited by a spaceship. Earlier this year, NASA scientists determined that Bennu's surface was losing more irregular material than previously thought, making it even harder to collect samples.
According to mission scientists, the ship will continue in its current orbit until mid-August, during which time it will use instruments such as the OSIRIS-REx (OLA) laser altimeter to create a complete terrain map. , "form a global mosaic of high-resolution images"And the OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer (OTES) and the REgolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) for"produce global maps in the infrared and X-rays"This is necessary to choose the best landing site to minimize the risk of error.
After that, OSIRIS-REx will move to a higher orbit of about 1.3 km. Sample collection with the help of an instrument called TAGSAM is scheduled for the summer of 2020, while the return to Earth is scheduled for 2023.
Hayabusa2, a similar mission to Japan, successfully collected samples of the Ryugu asteroid using a tantalum bullet in February 2019 and then drilled them out with the help of Explosive device for another test of sampling. However, this second race has not yet taken place and its timing is limited before Ryugu approaches the Sun too much and the mission is not viable. [NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin]
Source link
