NASA probe OSIRIS-REx leaking asteroid samples after bountiful collection on Bennu

[Judi Lynn]

Posted Yesterday at 11:54pm

A probe NASA sent into space to take a sample of asteroid material has retrieved so much that its container can't close properly, allowing rocks to spill out into the void.

The robotic arm of the probe, OSIRIS-REx, on Tuesday night kicked up a debris cloud of rocks on Bennu, a skyscraper-sized asteroid some 320 million kilometres from Earth.

It then successfully trapped at least 60 grams of the material — a mix of loose, unconsolidated rock, glass and minerals known as regolith — in a collection device for the return to Earth.

But images of the spacecraft's collection head beamed back to ground control revealed it had caught more material than scientists anticipated and was spewing an excess of flaky asteroid rocks into space.

More:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-24/nasa-probe-leaking-asteroid-samples-osiris-rex-bennu/12810206?section=technology

[Judi Lynn]

1. OSIRIS-REx is leaking asteroid samples due to jammed lid

By David Szondy
October 23, 2020

Images returned by NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid explorer have confirmed that the spacecraft's sample collector head is slowly leaking some of the material it gathered from the surface of the asteroid Bennu on October 20, 2020.

When OSIRIS-REx's Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head made contact with Bennu, its one job was to release a blast of nitrogen gas to stir up soil and small rocks, which it would then collect. Since this autonomous operation was completed and the spacecraft withdrew to a safe distance from the asteroid, NASA scientists have been examining images sent back by cameras to determine if the exercise was successful.

It turned out to be a case of good and bad news. The good news is that the TAGSAM head worked perfectly at just the right angle to the asteroid's surface, collecting material to a depth of several centimeters.

The bad news is that, while the apparatus did collect enough material beyond the minimum of 2 oz (60 g) to meet one of the main mission requirements, it turns out that some larger pieces of rock jammed open the mylar flap that forms the lid of the sampler, and soil is slowly leaking out.

More:
https://newatlas.com/space/osiris-rex-leaking-asteroid-samples-jammed-lid/