OSIRIS-REx on Bennu: The mission’s project scientist details “greedy” asteroid sampling, challenges, and more.
NASA’s spacecraft is set to descend on asteroid Bennu on Oct. 20. We spoke with the project scientist about the challenges of robotically sampling a space rock millions of miles away.
An artist’s rendering depicting OSIRIS-REx above Bennu.
Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
In the coming days, OSIRIS-REx is set to robotically scoop an asteroid sample more than 200 million miles from Earth. On Oct. 20, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will descend on asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of its surface in what NASA has officially dubbed a Touch-And-Go (TAG). If successful, the cosmic bounty could be the space agency’s largest space sample recovery since the Apollo era, according to NASA. We recently spoke with Jason Dworkin, the project scientist for OSIRIS-REx, about the upcoming TAG, the “greedy” tendencies of asteroid sampling, and more.
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