NASA finally got the stuck lid off its asteroid Bennu sample container

You’d suppose grabbing a scoop of filth off an orbiting area rock after which delivering it again to Earth could be essentially the most difficult a part of an asteroid pattern assortment mission, however the actual problem, it seems, is definitely opening that pattern container as soon as it’s again residence. It’s taken somewhat over three months, however says it has lastly eliminated two caught fasteners that had been stopping it from accessing the majority of fabric collected from asteroid Bennu by its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx dropped the pattern off on September 24 earlier than heading off to check one other asteroid, Apophis.

Whereas NASA was initially in a position to that was discovered on the surface of the Contact-and-Go-Pattern Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), its internal contents remained locked away as a consequence of points with two of the 35 fasteners that maintain the container closed. The TAGSAM is housed in a particular glovebox to forestall the pattern from being contaminated, and solely sure instruments are accepted to be used with it. Not one of the current instruments had been working to get the cussed fasteners off the TAGSAM head, so the staff needed to develop new ones.

“Along with the design problem of being restricted to curation-approved supplies to guard the scientific worth of the asteroid pattern, these new instruments additionally wanted to perform inside the tightly-confined area of the glovebox, limiting their peak, weight, and potential arc motion,” mentioned Dr. Nicole Lunning, an OSIRIS-REx curator. Now that the TAGSAM head has been freed, the staff can transfer ahead with the container’s disassembly — which means we’ll quickly be capable to see what’s inside. NASA’s preliminary evaluation of mud and rocks from exterior the TAGSAM discovered proof of carbon and water.