NASA set to launch asteroid space dust probe

NASA is all set to begin its first robotic mission aimed at scooping up 4.5-billion-year-old dust from an asteroid. The $800-million NASA mission is called OSIRIS-REx, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer.

• The unmanned spacecraft will travel to an asteroid near Earth called Bennu to collect space dust that may reveal how the materials necessary for life — such as carbon and ice — made their way to our planet.

Details:

• Material returned is expected to enable scientists to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds which led to the formation of life on Earth.
• If successful, OSIRIS-REx will be the first US spacecraft to return samples from an asteroid.
• The mission, developed by the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Lockheed Martin Space Systems, is planned for launch in September 2016. The science team includes members from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy.

Why asteroid in general and bennu in particular was chosen for the study?

An asteroid was chosen as the target of study because an asteroid is a ‘time capsule’ from the birth of our Solar System.

• In particular, Bennu was selected because of the availability of pristine carbonaceous material, a key element in organic molecules necessary for life as well as representative of matter from before the formation of Earth.

The science objectives of the mission are:

• Return and analyze a sample of pristine carbonaceous asteroid regolith in an amount sufficient to study the nature, history, and distribution of its constituent minerals and organic material.
• Map the global properties, chemistry, and mineralogy of a primitive carbonaceous asteroid to characterize its geologic and dynamic history and provide context for the returned samples.
• Document the texture, morphology, geochemistry, and spectral properties of the regolith at the sampling site in situ at scales down to millimeters.
• Measure the Yarkovsky effect (a thermal force on the object) on a potentially hazardous asteroid and constrain the asteroid properties that contribute to this effect.
• Characterize the integrated global properties of a primitive carbonaceous asteroid to allow for direct comparison with ground-based telescopic data of the entire asteroid population.