Skip to main content

NASA first explorer spacecraft took off to asteroid to bring back samples

Round trip, the spacecraft is expected to travel for more than 6 billion kilometers before the mission’s end in 2023.


 NASA first explorer of its kind has been flied off on a seven-year quest mission, following after a big, black, undiscovered asteroid to obtain a few handfuls of gravel for return to Earth.

These bite-size bits of ancient space rock from asteroid Bennu could hold result about the origin of life, not just on our planet but potentially elsewhere in the solar system. Thousands gathered to witness the evening launch of Osiris-Rex, a robotic hunter that looks something like a bird with its solar wings. The spacecraft took flight atop an Atlas V rocket.


EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS: Hundreds of people gathered to witness the launch of an Atlas V rocket at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
  DISCOVERING A NEW HORIZONS: thousands of people came to witness the launch of an Atlas V rocket at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
 
A successful victory was declared after the launch late on Thursday; launch controllers shook hands and embraced as the spacecraft shot out of Earth’s orbit, bound for Bennu.

“Tonight is a night for celebration. We are on our way to an asteroid,” said NASA’s chief scientist, Ellen Stofan. “We got everything just exactly perfect,” added Osiris-Rex chief scientist Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona. It will take two years for Osiris-Rex to reach Bennu, which is circling the sun in a slightly wider orbit than Earth’s. The boxy spacecraft will actually go into orbit around the asteroid, seeking out the best spot before going in for a quick bite.

Osiris-Rex will hover like a hummingbird over Bennu, according to Mr. Lauretta, as the spacecraft’s three-metre mechanical arm touches down on the surface for three to five seconds. Thrusters will burst out nitrogen gas to stir up the surface, and the loose particles will be sucked up into the device.

Round trip, the spacecraft will travel more than 6 billion kilometers by the mission’s end in 2023.

Keywords: NASA spaceship, undiscovered asteroid, solar, rocket,planet.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

We love comments. Show US Some love

Popular posts from this blog

ISRO ready for a critical crew rescuing test

The Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment which was test-flown by the ISRO two years ago.—PHOTO: THULASI KAKKAT It will test how fast and effectively the crew module of an intended space mission could punch out from a spacecraft The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up to conduct a critical ‘crew bailout test’ to see how fast and effectively the crew module of an intended space mission could punch out from the spacecraft safely in the event of an emergency. The test, known as Pad Abort, will be held at the launch pad of Sriharikota High Altitude Range (SHAR) in a month or two, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) Director K. Sivan told The Hindu in an interaction on the sidelines of the ongoing expo in connection with the World Space Week celebrations at Ernakulathappan ground here. The test forms part of a gamut of critical technologies being developed by the space agency as it awaits the nod from the government for the ambitious ‘human in sp...
Post a Comment
Read more

Referees add more extra time when the big teams are losing

the facts which shows how football referees add more time when big teams are losing soccer (football) fans suspected it, however now facts is confirming it. After analysing all the suits of the Spanish league "la Liga" from the 2014-2015 season,  specialists in sports technology have observed that the extra the difference on the scoreboard, the less stoppage time is delivered to the stop of the game. when the rating is tighter, however, referees have a tendency to feature extra stoppage time when the crew within the better department is losing. The stoppage time brought by way of the referee following the compulsory ninety mins of a football suit is used to compensate for time misplaced because of substitutions, accidents, expulsions and other incidents that stand up at some stage in the sport, but it seems as although different elements additionally play a position in step with a brand new look at. Researchers Carlos Lago, from the university of Vigo (Spain), and Maite Gó...
Post a Comment
Read more

MIT scientists makes use of terahertz waves to read closed books

 some Scientists, have invented a new technology that can read the pages of a closed book, an advance that may help archaeologists look into antique books without touching them. Researchers, including Ramesh Raskar from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S, tested a prototype of the system on a stack of papers, each with one letter printed on it. The system was able to correctly identify the letters on the top nine sheets. “The Metropolitan Museum in New York showed a lot of interest in this, because they want to, for example, look into some antique books that they don’t even want to touch,” said Barmak Heshmat, a research scientist at MIT. He said that the system could be used to analyse any materials organised in thin layers, such as coatings on machine parts or pharmaceuticals. Researchers from MIT and Georgia Institute of Technology developed the algorithms that acquire images from individual sheets in stacks of paper, and interprets the o...
Post a Comment
Read more