2023-09-24 20:07:07
Shortly after landing in a desert area of Utah: The sample container of the asteroid probe Osiris-Rex is prepared for transport by experts, as can be seen in a photo provided by NASA. Image: EPA
The rock samples from the American asteroid probe Osiris-Rex landed safely in the Utah desert. There is relief at NASA because such a maneuver had already gone wrong once.
NASA has succeeded in its first “sample return” mission to an asteroid. A capsule containing rock material from the celestial body 101955 Bennu, which the Osiris-Rex probe had sampled almost three years ago, arrived today at the US Air Force’s Test and Training Range in eastern Utah, 130 kilometers west of Salt Lake City.
Ulf von Rauchhaupt
Editor in the “Science” department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
The sample capsule landed at 8:52 a.m. local time (in Central Europe it was 4:52 p.m.) on its braking parachutes, which had opened as planned at an altitude of one and a half kilometers. Before touching down on the desert ground, which had been slightly softened by the rain, the sample capsule had fallen through the Earth’s atmosphere for thirteen minutes. The conical heat shield heated up to 2700 degrees.
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