Posted on 09/28/2017 10:44:58 AM PDT by MtnClimber
As NASA’s OSIRIS-REx heads off to collect asteroid particles, ensuring they remain pure looms as a major challenge. Andrew Masterson reports.
Last Friday, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe zipped past Earth, just 17,000 kilometres up, on its way to collect what might very well be the most expensive handful of dirt in history.
The probe, which was launched on September 8, 2016, is on its way to an asteroid called Bennu. Once it arrives, in 2018, the probe will spend 12 months imaging and collecting data before, finally, swooping down to the surface in a manoeuvre characterised as “touch and go”, scooping up 60 grams of gunk, and then ferrying it back to Earth for analysis.
The craft is scheduled to touch down on September 24, 2023, and the findings that may eventually arise from patient analysis of the sample could provide new evidence regarding not only the early history of the solar system, but also, perhaps, about how life arose on our own planet.
Aside from the considerable construction and navigational challenges involved in getting a 6.2 metre long, 2000 kilogram delicate piece of instrument-laden machinery all the way from Cape Canaveral to a tiny lump of rock over two million kilometres away (at the closest point of its 1.2 year orbit) and back again, there is another, less acknowledged but vital matter that scientists at NASA have had to confront.
How do you keep a space probe clean? To be more precise, how do you ensure that the material scraped from the top of Bennu by the probe’s expendable Touch-and-Go Sample Arm Mechanism (TAGSAM) isn’t contaminated by microscopic debris that has been along for the ride since Day One?
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmosmagazine.com ...
I know someone who worked on this project to design the space probe.
Space condoms?...................
On the bright-side, it’s probably not rusting.
Only show it family friendly movies?
Three posts. All it took was three posts. LOL!
NASA will probably shoot some electricity into it to see if they can bring something back to life.
NASA....they think Frankenstein is a how-to book.
Don’t let pigeons fly into the clean room.
You just got the last dust particle cleaned off the space probe before launch. Your coworker starts to twitch their nose and KA-CHOO!! Space probe launch delayed several months or does NASA just launch it and hope the radiation kills the bugs?
The radiation may make the bugs spawn life millions of years later that comes back to Earth and take it over as their party planet.
I usually use soap and water.
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