posted 09-28-2023 05:10 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Michael is the son of cS member Larry Puzio (cS: lspooz)!

---

posted 10-04-2023 10:42 AM               

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Views Sample Return Capsule’s Departure

After years of anticipation and hard work by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) team, a capsule of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu returned to Earth on Sept. 24 in a targeted area of the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City.

A few hours before the landing, OSIRIS-REx took some of its final views of its own sample return capsule.

Above: This image of the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule still attached to the spacecraft’s instrument deck was captured by the spacecraft’s StowCam camera on Sept. 23 at 10:37:55 a.m. EDT (14:37:55 UTC), less than 24 hours before the capsule’s release. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin)

Above: This black-and-white sequence of OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule descent toward Earth comes from TAGCAMS’s NavCam 1 and was taken in the moments after the capsule’s release from the spacecraft on Sept. 24, 2023. The Sun is visible at the top of the frame, and a thin “crescent Earth” can be seen at the left edge of the image. This sequence of images has been processed to remove most of the scattered sunlight, bring out more detail of the capsule and release debris cloud, and prevent the Earth crescent from saturating. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin)

posted 10-10-2023 10:43 AM               

The 2:30 p.m. EDT media teleconference will be an opportunity for the press to ask further questions about what is revealed at the unveiling event. Audio of the call will stream live (and again, we will have an embedded feed before it begins tomorrow).

posted 10-11-2023 07:10 AM               

The first asteroid sample collected in space by a U.S. spacecraft and brought to Earth is unveiled to the world at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday, Oct. 11.

The science team from NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission will provide results from an initial analysis of the sample, which landed on Sunday, Sept. 24, in the Utah desert. News conference participants include:

• NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
  
• Lori Glaze, NASA Planetary Directorate Science Division Director
  
• Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator, University of Arizona, Tucson
  
• Francis McCubbin, OSIRIS-REx Head Astromaterials curator, NASA Johnson
  
• Daniel Glavin, OSIRIS-REx sample analysis lead, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt

posted 10-11-2023 12:27 PM               

A view of the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector. Sample material from asteroid Bennu can be seen on the middle right. Scientists have found evidence of both carbon and water in initial analysis of this material. The bulk of the sample is located inside.

posted 10-11-2023 04:48 PM               

Following a public unveiling of the United States’ first asteroid sample, NASA hosted a media teleconference to share more findings from the science team.

posted 12-05-2023 08:32 PM               

...NASA found that inconsistent wiring label definitions in the design plans likely caused engineers to wire the parachutes' release triggers such that signals meant to deploy the drogue chute fired out of order.

posted 12-06-2023 11:53 AM            

Although the delivery was successful, the landing sequence did not go entirely according to plan...

posted 03-09-2024 12:57 PM            

I thought that would be a fun thing to do with my grandkids, so I signed myself, grandson Nicholas (6) and granddaughter Sophia (10) up. I received our three certificates via e-mail, all signed by Bill Nye and a Dr. Dante Loretta, the principal investigator.

Last September, I received an e-mail from Sophia, now a 20-year old sophomore at the University of Arizona asking me if I was aware of this spacecraft that had been to an asteroid which was going to land very soon and that one of her professors at UA was "involved" in the project. She did not realize I had been following the mission closely for 7 years, including the launch, the arrival, the sample pickup, and the departure, so I was well prepared for the landing in Utah.

I reminded her about the certificates and her name being aboard the spacecraft. She was naturally quite surprised, since it had been 10 years since I first told her about it. Upon examining the certificates, I realized that her astrobiology professor at Arizona was the principal investigator who had signed it 10 years earlier! I watched the landing, and Sophia, after several weeks of waiting for Dr. Loretta to return from Houston, took her certificate in and had him resign it as well as some other mission souvenirs he gave her.