It’s Back!
Right on the money. Just as planned, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx satellite dropped its sample capsule on the Utah desert where it was quickly recovered. It should contain a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu.
The NASA recovery team took the sample container from the OSIRIS-REx satellite to a temporary clean room on the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range.
The clean room was set up specifically for this purpose and was ready to receive the capsule. The sample container was secured and the area around it was deemed safe before the recovery process began. The team placed the 100-pound capsule into a metal cradle and wrapped it in multiple sheets of Teflon and then a tarp. The capsule was then wrapped in a harness and secured to one end of a 100-foot cable hanging from a helicopter. The helicopter transported the capsule to the temporary clean room on base.
In the clean room, the capsule will be disassembled and packaged in parts for transport to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, its permanent home. Scientists will analyze the rocks and soil from the sample for the next two years at a dedicated clean room inside Johnson Space Center. The sample will also be divided up and sent to laboratories around the globe, including OSIRIS-REx mission partners at the Canadian Space Agency and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.
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