NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is heading to asteroid Bennu...
and back. [music]
[music]
The OSIRIS-REx mission goal is to study
near-Earth asteroid Bennu and return a sample to Earth.
OSIRIS-REx’s launch window opens September 8, 2016 from Space
Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
[dramatic music] [rocket fires]
The spacecraft, nestled inside a Centaur upper stage,
launches on an Atlas V rocket with a single solid rocket booster.
[rocket stops firing] [dramatic music continues]
The rocket’s first stage separates...
and then the Centaur upper stage fires.
The fairings separate from the rocket...
and the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft releases from the Centaur upper stage.
Angled toward the Sun, the spacecraft deploys its solar arrays.
Now traveling over 25,000 miles per hour,
OSIRIS-REx escapes Earth’s gravity...
and begins its cruise toward asteroid Bennu.
[softer, driving music]
After 23 months, the spacecraft arrives at
asteroid Bennu in August, 2018.
With its suite of observational instruments, OSIRIS-REx orbits
the asteroid... studying its characteristics and mapping its
surface. After four phases of survey observations, OSIRIS-REx
begins preparations to collect the sample. In July 2020, after
months of rehearsals and study, the spacecraft approaches for
sample collection. It slowly descends to Bennu’s surface at
less than a quarter mile per hour. With an outstretched arm,
OSIRIS-REx briefly touches the surface. The touch-and-go sample
acquisition mechanism, TAGSAM, blows high-pressure nitrogen gas
into the surface rocks and dust, sending loose asteroid material
up into the TAGSAM head.
[dramatic rise and fall in the music]
OSIRIS-REx backs away from Bennu... and stows the
sample in a capsule for its journey to Earth.
[calm driving music continues]
In March 2021, the window opens for OSIRIS-REx to depart Bennu.
[music drives harder]
The spacecraft returns to Earth September 24, 2023 and jettisons the Sample Return
Capsule. As the spacecraft leaves Earth, the return capsule
enters the Earth’s atmosphere at over 27,000 miles per hour,
protected by a heat shield.
[intense friction of heat shield against atmosphere] [driving music continues]
A couple miles above the surface, a parachute deploys...
[parachute deploys and flutters in the wind]
and the capsule lands softly in the Utah desert.
[soft thump] [dramatic music climax]
Bennu’s secrets can now be investigated for decades to come.
[soft music finish]