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Graphic toont het ruimtevaartuig, touch-and-go robotarm en de sample return capsule.
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RUIMTEVAART

OSIRIS-REx-missie naar asteroïde Bennu

January 24, 2019 - Het ruimtevaartuig OSIRIS-REx zal in 2020 landen om een monster te nemen van het oppervlak van Bennu – een koolstofrijke asteroïde die mogelijk moleculaire voorlopers bevat van het begin van het leven op Aarde.

Of more than 500,000 asteroids in the solar system, Bennu is one of only five with the right orbits, sizes and carbonaceous compositions for a sample-return mission. The 510-metre wide asteroid is probably part of a much more massive asteroid -- remaining debris from the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago.

Launched in September 2016, OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu, 110 million kilometres from Earth, in December 2018. On New Year’s Eve, the spacecraft went into orbit around Bennu.

Starting in February, the OSIRIS-REx team will perform a series of close flybys of Bennu, taking high-resolution images of the asteroid to select a sampling site.

During the summer of 2020, the spacecraft will briefly touch the surface of Bennu using a two-metre-long robotic arm, its Touch-and-Go Sample Arm Mechanism (TAGSAM) to retrieve a sample.

The sample head will use high-pressure nitrogen to kick up regolith -- dust and rock particles from millions of years of meteoroid impacts -- during a five-second contact. The TAGSAM can capture particles up to two centimetres in diameter while contact pads can pick up fine dust particles up to one millimetre in diameter.

The OSIRIS-REx team hope to collect up to two kilograms of regolith. The sample will be sealed in a return capsule for the cruise back to Earth, arriving in September 2023.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 24/01/2019; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: NASA/JPL
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