Rock Samples from Asteroid Bennu Are 5 Days Away from Reaching Earth!

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / Conceptual Image Lab

OSIRIS-REx Makes Final Course Adjustment Before Sept. 24 Sample Delivery (News Release)

On September 17, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx engineers slightly shifted the spacecraft’s trajectory to refine the landing location of its sample capsule, which the spacecraft will deliver to Earth on September 24. The spacecraft briefly fired its thrusters on Sunday to change its velocity by 7 inches per minute (3 millimeters per second) relative to Earth.

This final correction maneuver moved the sample capsule’s predicted landing location east by nearly 8 miles, or 12.5 kilometers, to the center of its predetermined landing zone inside a 36-mile by 8.5-mile (58-kilometer by 14-kilometer) area on the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range.

Sunday’s maneuver was a tweak of a critical maneuver on September 10, which set the spacecraft on course to release its sample capsule, with rocks and dust from asteroid Bennu, from 63,000 miles (or 102,000 kilometers) above Earth’s surface this weekend.

The spacecraft is currently about 1.8 million miles (or 2.8 million kilometers) away, traveling at about 14,000 mph (about 23,000 kph) towards Earth.

Source: NASA.Gov