NASA's OSIRIS-REx Ready for Touchdown on Asteroid Bennu:
NASA's first asteroid sample return mission is officially prepared for its long-awaited touchdown on asteroid Bennu's surface. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has targeted Oct. 20 for its first sample collection attempt.
[...] From discovering Bennu's surprisingly rugged and active surface, to entering the closest-ever orbit around a planetary body, OSIRIS-REx has overcome several challenges since arriving at the asteroid in December 2018. Last month, the mission brought the spacecraft 213 ft (65 m) from the asteroid's surface during its first sample collection rehearsal — successfully completing a practice run of the activities leading up to the sampling event.
[...] The mission had originally planned to perform the first Touch-and-Go (TAG) sample collection event on Aug. 25 after completing a second rehearsal in June. This rehearsal, now scheduled for Aug. 11, will bring the spacecraft through the first three maneuvers of the sample collection sequence to an approximate altitude of 131 ft (40 m) over the surface of Bennu. The first sample collection attempt is now scheduled for Oct. 20, during which the spacecraft will descend to Bennu's surface and collect material from sample site Nightingale.
[...] During the TAG event, OSIRIS-REx's sampling mechanism will touch Bennu's surface for approximately five seconds, fire a charge of pressurized nitrogen to disturb the surface, and collect a sample before the spacecraft backs away. The mission has resources onboard for three sample collection opportunities. If the spacecraft successfully collects a sufficient sample on Oct. 20, no additional sampling attempts will be made. The spacecraft is scheduled to depart Bennu in mid-2021, and will return the sample to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023.
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NASA reports, via NASA, that OSIRIS-REx is leaving Bennu.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx completed its last flyover of Bennu around 6 a.m. EDT (4 a.m. MDT) April 7 and is now slowly drifting away from the asteroid; however, the mission team will have to wait a few more days to find out how the spacecraft changed the surface of Bennu when it grabbed a sample of the asteroid.
The OSIRIS-REx team added this flyby to document surface changes resulting from the Touch and Go (TAG) sample collection maneuver Oct. 20, 2020. "By surveying the distribution of the excavated material around the TAG site, we will learn more about the nature of the surface and subsurface materials along with the mechanical properties of the asteroid," said Dr. Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona.
During the flyby, OSIRIS-REx imaged Bennu for 5.9 hours, covering more than a full rotation of the asteroid. It flew within 2.1 miles' (3.5 kilometers) distance to the surface of Bennu – the closest it's been since the TAG sample collection event.
Just to mention, the survey and selection of a sampling site was one of the recent "citizen science" projects.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday May 22 2020, @02:05PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/162173_Ryugu [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101955_Bennu [wikipedia.org]
Two very similar objects visited in the same year.
Hayabusa2 will return samples to Earth this year, but has enough propellant to continue to another target.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Friday May 22 2020, @02:09PM (6 children)
At what point does space mining become profitable? Three years and several million for a return of a few milligrams doesn't seem worth it. I would think from a discovery point of view would be to have it permanently on it, with it's own microscope, robot hands, chem tests, etc. Then just have some AI drive it around taking and dumping samples every few meters. Then when you find something cool, send in spacebots to mine, refine and then shoot purified metals back in like a giant rail gun.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @02:13PM (3 children)
It's basically rock collecting at this point.
So who has the best collection? We have one from the Moon now we've got one from Bennu. See it sparkle! Cool, I want one from Mars next.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Friday May 22 2020, @02:23PM (1 child)
I think the coolest thing to find would be space steel. Like lots of it, in sand form. Then have these little roomba robots that collect it up and feeds to a spider like melt robots that will 3d prints some deathstar like space fortress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @02:32PM
The Evil Emperor(tm) would want it gold plated.
(Score: 2) by Kitsune008 on Friday May 22 2020, @02:47PM
We already have Mars rocks here on Earth.
They came here as meteorites, and can be picked up from the ground.
Granted, they are not pristine samples of Mars, and not plentiful, but yes, we have Mars rocks in our collection.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RandomFactor on Friday May 22 2020, @02:43PM
M type (metallic) are the rarest type of asteroid, and those are majority Nickel and Iron, not platinum and gold.
It could be done with near-term technology and would be quite profitable in theory, but the massive up front development and capital requirements, high risk, and extended time frames means there are much safer places to put that kind of money to get high returns currently.
I wouldn't expect it to take off for decades, although I would be happy to be wrong.
Here are a few related videos
Asteroid Mining [youtube.com]
Industrializing the Moon [youtube.com]
Kickstarting Space Industry [youtube.com]
Accessing Earth's Core [youtube.com]
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 23 2020, @09:14PM
When you can get more adjusted for time and risk out of space mining than the resources you put in.
And you would be right. At this point the value of the project is in technology demonstrations and sample return for scientific purposes. Whether that's worth the cost of the mission depends on the beholder. It certainly wouldn't be justified on purely economic grounds.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @05:43PM (1 child)
Fifty years ago, people were impressed with a fake moon landing. Now, NASA has to fake landing on an asteroid to get the public's attention.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Friday May 22 2020, @05:59PM
I can't keep up. So it went from fake Moon landings to the Earth being flat (I still think that's out of order) and now we are on fake asteroid landings?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @09:40PM (1 child)
maybe there's a sealed filling cabinet somewhere in a governmental high security facility with a game plan on how-to "break the news" via P.H.ds and argumentation circuit acts to the global population when some new "material" is found on a asteroid that doesn't fit on the periodic table : P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:41AM
They're hiding all sorts of things in THAT cabinet.