News Muncher - searching for capsule

It was, Dante Lauretta told his audience at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, like seeing an old friend after “seven years a journey of 3bn miles”. In the intervening years the capsule had travelled to Bennu, a small asteroid in an orbit which crosses that of the Earth, as part of a mission called OSIRIS REx. The …

Capsule

NASA on Wednesday showed off its first asteroid samples delivered last month by a spacecraft — a jumble of black dust and rubble that's the most ever returned to Earth. NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft collected the samples three years ago from the surface of Bennu and then dropped them off sealed in a capsule during a flyby of Earth last month. …

NASA's first asteroid samples fetched from deep space parachuted into the Utah desert Sunday to cap a seven-year journey. This image taken from video provided by NASA TV shows the capsule released by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft lying on the surface near the parachute after landing to Earth. Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system 4.5 billion years …

NASA capsule carrying first asteroid samples lands on Earth

NASA’s first asteroid samples fetched from deep space parachuted into the Utah desert on September 24 to cap a seven-year journey. Scientists estimate the capsule holds at least a cup of rubble from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu, but won’t know for sure until the container is opened. Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system 4.5 …

Capsule with NASA’s first asteroid samples lands on Earth after release from spacecraft

Mission operations assurance lead Graham Miller, left, recovery specialist Michael Kaye, and recovery specialist Levi Hanish, right, all with Lockheed Martin, prepare the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission for transport after it landed at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range on Sunday. A helicopter transports a capsule carrying NASA’s first asteroid samples at Dugway Proving …

Come September 24, and debris from an alien world will land on the earth. NASA’s asteroid hunting spacecraft OSIRIS-REx – short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer – will drop a capsule containing pristine asteroid material in the Utah desert. The astro-material brought back by OSIRIS-REx, he added, “may provide scientists with valuable insights into how planets formed, what materials were …

NASA effort to bring home asteroid rocks will end this weekend in triumph or a crash Enlarge this image toggle caption NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona If all goes as planned, on Sunday morning a bell-shaped space capsule the size of a mini-fridge will come screaming down through the atmosphere toward a Utah desert. That moment "was gut-wrenching," says …

NASA's Osiris-Rex tucks asteroid samples into capsule for return to Earth

A NASA spacecraft tucked more than two kilograms of asteroid samples into a capsule for return to Earth after losing some of its precious loot because of a jammed lid, scientists said Thursday. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do” to get the samples back safely, said lead scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona. But tens …