NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft first arrived at the large space rock known as Bennu late last year, and it’s spent the first few months of 2019 observing its new space companion and teaching NASA more about the rock’s surface. Unfortunately for NASA engineers, the asteroid’s surface is nothing like what they assumed it would be, and that poses a serious challenge going forward.
The OSIRIS-REx mission includes multiple objectives, with the first being the successful insertion of the spacecraft into orbit around the rock itself. NASA nailed it and things seemed to be great, or at least until scientists got a good look at Bennu’s surface. As Sky & Telescope reports, it has complicated matters greatly.
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Nobody knows if NASA’s OSIRIS-REx can pull off its daring asteroid-sampling maneuver originally appeared on BGR.com on Fri, 22 Mar 2019 at 19:05:19 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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