NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is returning with its first-ever asteroid sample NASA is preparing to nab its first-ever asteroid sample as the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft drops a capsule containing fragments of the potentially hazardous object Bennu onto Earth. Launched in 2016, OSIRIS-REx, which stands for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, took two …
I was at the Kennedy Space Centre for the launch on 8 Sept 2016. Watched the launch from the nearly empty car park after a day touring the complex. Was the highlight of a 2 week visit to the Orlando area, although Discovery Cove came a close second. I've followed it's progress ever since and would like to be the first to welcome our Asteroidal Overlords on their triumphant arrival in Utah. <LOL>
LOL! Reminds me of the '99 eclipse event. Me and 2 of my buddies made a holiday of it travelling from London to the West Country to pick up another buddy then down through Bristol to Devon and kept going. Living in tents and on a steady diet beans, bread, beer and buckets of scrumpy for a wee we finally arrived somewhere near Lizard Point where an enterprising farmer had converted his stables into a shower block and we stayed in his field for 5 pounds(!!!!). On the day itself it was thick cloud but I'd bought one of those battery powered Casio LCD TVs and we watched the eclipse beamed down from an RAF Nimrod high above us. Regardless of the cloud it was a beeping great week!
Yeah, I nipped over to France to see it. Took my girlfriend (now wife) on the back of my new 1200 Bandit.
It hissed it down the whole time. The only way we knew the that eclipse was actually happening was that the local dogs started howling and the street lights all came on.
Still, it was good to see the look on the mechanic's face when I took the bike back for its 600-mile first service - three days after I'd bought it.
> The device will barrel towards Earth and reenter the atmosphere at 0842 MDT (1542 UTC), reaching 27,650 miles per hour
> On Wednesday, leaders from NASA working with the US military performed the final dress rehearsal for the return mission, dropping a dummy sample capsule from an aircraft
It would be impressive if that aircraft managed to "drop" the test capsule at a speed of 27,650 miles per hour (44,500 kph for the other 95% of the world, or 1621844838 double-decker buses per fortnight for readers here). However, I suppose the old adage of never test for a condition you don't know how to handle applies. If the test capsule did fail, there's not a lot the americans could do to prevent the same thing from happening to the real thing.
It's not going to be going 1621844838 ddb/ftn in the lower atmosphere in any case. That's the maximum velocity as it starts falling into earths gravity well, but the capsule will have encountered a lot of atmopsheric drag before it comes even close to the ground and will have slowed down considerably even without parachutes (That's what the heat shield is for. All that energy is going somewhere).
Ladies and Gentlemen, the runners are taking their positions at the post for this exciting race.
Lane 1: Monolith Monsters, a good runner on the wet, peppery but no salt, please
Lane 2: Green Slime, from our Japanese stables
Lane 3: The Blob, an old friend for Steve our senior stable lad
Lane 4: is currently empty, Night Of The Comet having passed
Lane 5: The Seed, a youngster, but already a hit with the Valley Girls
Lane 6: Andromeda Strain, a firm favourite coming in on its home turf
Lane 7: Calvin, that little ball of Life
Lane 8: Audrey II, mean and green as always
We were hoping to see a few more runners here, but The Nestene have been harrassed by the Just Stop Oil protestors and the trailer for Pod People has been delayed by a man running into traffic.
We have two late runners: the Triffids are now moving into lane 9 and in lane 10 - oh, it appears to be an argument breaking out between the Krynoid and what appears to be his cousin from Surrey Green.
"Asteroids are thought to be chunks of leftover material forged during the planets' formation in the solar system" - certainly that's likely but the planets' formation was not simple ... go look at the full moon tonight and then the theories about how the moon appeared and what happened on our planet as a result?
When you realize how the moon was probably formed it will be very interesting to look at all the "asteroid trash" floating around in our solar system and investigating how much of it reproduces our environment ... there's a lot of evidence suggesting that when the Earth first solidified, asteroids arriving on our planet probably resulted in life's creation.
"... it will be carefully retrieved and flown to a clean room on the military range. The pod will be disassembled and shipped to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the sample will be documented, stored, and distributed to scientists around the world."
Hmm ...
What could possibly go wrong?
Hope the "clean room" is more than just clean: really very well sealed.
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