NASA spacecraft to touch down on asteroid Bennu's surface in historic mission

The National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA) on October 20 will perform a historic mission when its robotic OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will touch down on asteroid Bennu’s surface for a few seconds for collecting rock samples and dust. This is the first time NASA will attempt to grab pieces of an asteroid, which will be returned to Earth for study.

Read: NASA Expert Suspects 'mini-moon' About To Enter Earth's Orbit Is Old Space Junk From 1960s

Mission details

The Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event will bring the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft down to the surface of Bennu, where the spacecraft’s robotic sampling arm will attempt to collect a sample. The touchdown will happen at site Nightingale, a rocky area 52 ft (16 m) in diameter in Bennu’s northern hemisphere, which was selected as the mission’s primary sample site because it holds the greatest amount of unobstructed fine-grained material. 

Read: Bharat Biotech Inks Deal With US-based Varsity For Single Dose Intranasal COVID Vaccine

The site, which is the size of a few parking spaces, is also surrounded by building-sized boulders where the spacecraft, a large van-sized vehicle, will attempt to touch down. The spacecraft will perform three separate maneuvers to reach the asteroid Bennu’s surface to collect the samples. This will be the largest sample collection event since the Apollo mission. 

"Because the spacecraft and Bennu are approximately 207 million miles (334 million km) from Earth during TAG, it will take about 18.5 minutes for signals to travel between them. This time lag prevents the live commanding of flight activities from the ground during the TAG event, so the spacecraft is designed to perform the entire sample collection sequence autonomously," NASA said in a statement. 

Read: NASA's New Mars Rover To Search For Traces Of Microscopic Life From Billions Of Years Back

The spacecraft is scheduled to depart Bennu in 2021 and it is scheduled to deliver the collected sample to Earth on September 24, 2023. The mission team will monitor the spacecraft from Lockheed Martin Space’s Mission Support Area, taking appropriate safety precautions keeping in mind the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Read: NASA Shares ‘sounds From Around The Milky Way’, Netizens Say 'heavens Singing Praises’