NASA’s OSIRIS-REx team clears hurdle to access remaining Bennu sample

Curation staff members at NASA’s Johnson Area Middle in Houston have efficiently eliminated the 2 fasteners from the sampler head that had prevented the rest of OSIRIS-REx’s asteroid Bennu pattern materials from being accessed.

Steps now are underway to finish the disassembly of the Contact-and-Go Pattern Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM, head to disclose the remainder of the rocks and dust delivered by NASA’s first asteroid pattern return mission.

“Our engineers and scientists have labored tirelessly behind the scenes for months to not solely course of the greater than 70 grams of fabric we had been capable of entry beforehand, but additionally design, develop, and take a look at new instruments that allowed us to maneuver previous this hurdle,” mentioned Eileen Stansbery, division chief for ARES (Astromaterials Analysis and Exploration Science) at Johnson.

“The innovation and dedication of this staff has been outstanding. We’re all excited to see the remaining treasure OSIRIS-REx holds.”

The rest of the majority pattern might be absolutely seen after a number of extra disassembly steps, at which level picture specialists will take ultra-high-resolution footage of the pattern whereas it’s nonetheless contained in the TAGSAM head. This portion of the pattern will then be eliminated and weighed, and the staff will have the ability to decide the total mass of Bennu materials captured by the mission.

Curation processors paused disassembly of the TAGSAM head {hardware} in mid-October after they found that two of the 35 fasteners couldn’t be eliminated with the instruments accepted to be used contained in the OSIRIS-REx glovebox.

In response, two new multi-part instruments had been designed and fabricated to help additional disassembly of the TAGSAM head. These instruments embody newly custom-fabricated bits comprised of a selected grade of surgical, non-magnetic chrome steel; the toughest metallic accepted to be used within the pristine curation gloveboxes.

“Along with the design challenge of being restricted to curation-approved supplies to guard the scientific worth of the asteroid pattern, these new instruments additionally wanted to operate throughout the tightly-confined space of the glovebox, limiting their top, weight, and potential arc motion,” mentioned Dr. Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curator at Johnson.

“The curation staff confirmed spectacular resilience and did unbelievable work to get these cussed fasteners off the TAGSAM head so we are able to proceed disassembly. We’re overjoyed with the success.”

Previous to the profitable elimination, the staff at Johnson examined the brand new instruments and elimination procedures in a rehearsal lab. After every profitable test, engineers elevated the meeting torque values and repeated the testing procedures till the staff was assured the new tools would have the ability to obtain the torque wanted whereas minimizing the chance of any potential harm to the TAGSAM head or any contamination of the pattern inside.

Regardless of not with the ability to absolutely disassemble the TAGSAM head, the curation staff members had already collected 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of asteroid materials from the pattern {hardware}, surpassing the company’s objective of bringing not less than 60 grams to Earth. They’ve fulfilled all of the pattern requests obtained from the OSIRIS-REx science staff to this point and have hermetically sealed among the Bennu pattern for higher preservation over lengthy timescales (e.g., a number of many years), storing some at ambient temperature circumstances and others at -112 Fahrenheit (-80 levels Celsius).

Later this spring, the curation staff will launch a catalog of the OSIRIS-REx samples, which might be obtainable to the worldwide scientific group.