OSIRIS-REx/OSIRIS-APEX Mission Updates

[catdlr]

An overview video of today's events:

OSIRIS-Rex arrived at asteroid Bennu


SciNews
Published on Dec 3, 2018

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu on 3 December 2018. OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) is the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid (near-Earth asteroid Bennu), retrieve surface material and return it to Earth for study in September 2023. The spacecraft was launched by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 411 configuration rocket from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on 8 September 2016, at 23:05 UTC (19:05 EDT). 
Credit: NASA

[mcgyver]

is this a video in infrared wavelength?!?

[whitelancer64]

is this a video in infrared wavelength?!?

Presumably this is imagery from the Mapcam, which makes observations with visible light.

[mcgyver]

Horizons site updated with ephemeris up to december 19.

Trajectory name                                   Start (TDB)    Stop (TDB)
  ----------------------------------------------    -----------   -----------
  orx_160908_231024_pgaa3_day06m60_v1               2016-Sep-08   2016-Sep-09
  orx_160909_171201_170830_od023_v1                 2016-Sep-09   2017-May-01
  orx_170501_180710_171005_od027_v1                 2017-May-01   2017-Sep-23
  orx_170923_180710_180125_od030_v1                 2017-Sep-23   2018-Mar-01
  orx_180801_181219_181203_od069-N-M2P-P-VC1_v1     2018-Aug-01   2018-Dec-19
*******************************************************************************


 

[mcgyver]

This page plots in 3d the NASA Horizons data:
http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/osiris/osiris-3d.html


Note from NASA Horizons site on Osiris data:

SPACECRAFT TRAJECTORY
  Post-launch spacecraft reference trajectory. Updated as warranted, as the mission progresses.

[ChrisGebhardt]

Dec. 10, 2018

RELEASE 18-114

NASA’s Newly Arrived OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Already Discovers Water on Asteroid

Recently analyzed data from NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has revealed water locked inside the clays that make up its scientific target, the asteroid Bennu.

During the mission’s approach phase, between mid-August and early December, the spacecraft traveled 1.4 million miles (2.2 million km) on its journey from Earth to arrive at a location 12 miles (19 km) from Bennu on Dec. 3. During this time, the science team on Earth aimed three of the spacecraft’s instruments towards Bennu and began making the mission’s first scientific observations of the asteroid. OSIRIS-REx is NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission.

Data obtained from the spacecraft’s two spectrometers, the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (OVIRS) and the OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer (OTES), reveal the presence of molecules that contain oxygen and hydrogen atoms bonded together, known as “hydroxyls.” The team suspects that these hydroxyl groups exist globally across the asteroid in water-bearing clay minerals, meaning that at some point, Bennu’s rocky material interacted with water. While Bennu itself is too small to have ever hosted liquid water, the finding does indicate that liquid water was present at some time on Bennu’s parent body, a much larger asteroid.

“The presence of hydrated minerals across the asteroid confirms that Bennu, a remnant from early in the formation of the solar system, is an excellent specimen for the OSIRIS-REx mission to study the composition of primitive volatiles and organics,” said Amy Simon, OVIRS deputy instrument scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “When samples of this material are returned by the mission to Earth in 2023, scientists will receive a treasure trove of new information about the history and evolution of our solar system.”

Additionally, data obtained from the OSIRIS-REx Camera Suite (OCAMS) corroborate ground-based telescopic observations of Bennu and confirm the original model developed in 2013 by OSIRIS-REx Science Team Chief Michael Nolan and collaborators. That model closely predicted the asteroid’s actual shape, with Bennu’s diameter, rotation rate, inclination, and overall shape presented almost exactly as projected.

One outlier from the predicted shape model is the size of the large boulder near Bennu’s south pole. The ground-based shape model calculated this boulder to be at least 33 feet (10 meters) in height. Preliminary calculations from OCAMS observations show that the boulder is closer to 164 feet (50 meters) in height, with a width of approximately 180 feet (55 meters).

Bennu’s surface material is a mix of very rocky, boulder-filled regions and a few relatively smooth regions that lack boulders. However, the quantity of boulders on the surface is higher than expected. The team will make further observations at closer ranges to more accurately assess where a sample can be taken on Bennu to later be returned to Earth.

“Our initial data show that the team picked the right asteroid as the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission. We have not discovered any insurmountable issues at Bennu so far,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “The spacecraft is healthy and the science instruments are working better than required. It is time now for our adventure to begin.”

The mission currently is performing a preliminary survey of the asteroid, flying the spacecraft in passes over Bennu’s north pole, equator, and south pole at ranges as close as 4.4 miles (7 km) to better determine the asteroid’s mass. The mission’s scientists and engineers must know the mass of the asteroid in order to design the spacecraft’s insertion into orbit because mass affects the asteroid’s gravitational pull on the spacecraft. Knowing Bennu’s mass will also help the science team understand the asteroid’s structure and composition.

This survey also provides the first opportunity for the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA), an instrument contributed by the Canadian Space Agency, to make observations, now that the spacecraft is in proximity to Bennu.

The spacecraft’s first orbital insertion is scheduled for Dec. 31, and OSIRIS-REx will remain in orbit until mid-February 2019, when it exits to initiate another series of flybys for the next survey phase. During the first orbital phase, the spacecraft will orbit the asteroid at a range of 0.9 miles (1.4 km) to 1.24 miles (2.0 km) from the center of Bennu — setting new records for the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft and the closest orbit of a planetary body by any spacecraft.

Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the agency’s New Frontiers Program for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about OSIRIS-REx, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

-end-

[Chris Bergin]

ARTICLE: OSIRIS-REx finds water on asteroid Bennu -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/12/osiris-rex-water-asteroid-bennu/

- By Chris Gebhardt

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1072226238838833152

[Torbjorn Larsson, OM]

Not really a mission update, though it is touching on the "space science", so please remove if not suitable:

The return of such water-bearing material could help solidify or distance scientists from a theory that asteroids seeded Earth billions of years ago with the water that now dominates our planet’s surface.

FWIW many recent observations series and summaries of the field AFAIK close in on something like 1/4 or even 1/5 impact seeded volatiles, or at most somewhat shy of 1/2. For instance, a recent Ne20/Ne22 data series find that Earth volatiles may have been captured from the protoplanetary disk during planetesimal accretion since Earth mantle ratio is almost exactly the same as the solar wind ratio (and very different from the asteroid value) [ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0771-1 ]. A slight variation between MORB and hotspot mantle plumes is either secular or at least a witness to the uncertainty involved, and by my back-of-the-envelope - which can be off, of course - that gives or allows the "usual" 1/4 impact tail contribution to our volatiles.

Sample return will be somewhat exciting, to say the least.

[mcgyver]

Ephemeris updated on NASA Horizons site, now available up to March 2019:

Trajectory name                                   Start (TDB)    Stop (TDB)
  ----------------------------------------------    -----------   -----------
  orx_160908_231024_pgaa3_day06m60_v1               2016-Sep-08   2016-Sep-09
  orx_160909_171201_170830_od023_v1                 2016-Sep-09   2017-May-01
  orx_170501_180710_171005_od027_v1                 2017-May-01   2017-Sep-23
  orx_170923_180710_180125_od030_v1                 2017-Sep-23   2018-Mar-01
  orx_180801_190302_181214_od075-N-M7P-L-M0D_v1     2018-Aug-01   2019-Mar-02

Orbit insertion scheduled for January 1st.

Graphic ephemeris updated on my site: http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/osiris/osiris-3d.html

[mcgyver]

The orbit visible in the 3d chart looks weird, as it is centered on the center of the ellipse rather than on a focus.

[mcgyver]

The orbit visible in the 3d chart looks weird, as it is centered on the center of the ellipse rather than on a focus.

Orbit looked weird due to inconsistent axes, now all axes have same scale and we can see real shape of the orbit:
http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/osiris/osiris-3d.html
Apparently Osisir is going to leave the circular orbit at end of february for... something else; I can't find a detailed schedule of 2019 operations, only overall schedules like this:





In the meantime, NASA published a page talking about a 3d model, but apparently they forgot publishing the link to the model itself, which is available both as .OBJ (without texture :-( , 2.5MB) and .STL (11 MB), suitable for printing but quite low in reslution.
There are much better models on skecthfab (textured and high res), although only one downloadable.

[mcgyver]

How in the world is it possible that Earth, and even Moon, are visible from Bennu, 114 mln km away?!?


https://www.asteroidmission.org/navcam-earth-moon-bennu-dec19/

[zubenelgenubi]

Re: Earth-Moon system visible in OSIRIS-REx Navcam-1 5 sec. exposure (lower left):
Wow!

Just as Venus is far brighter than any night-time star as seen from Earth, Earth + Moon would also be quite bright (excluding Venus' eternally-clouded surface) in the night-time skies of the other terrestrial planets, and in the sky of a main-belt asteroid.

Don't quote me, but I believe I've read that, from Mars, the naked eye could split Earth and Moon (1x magnification).
 
Also, note the asterism marking the head of the constellation Hydra is visible in the lower right of this image.

[ugordan]

How in the world is it possible that Earth, and even Moon, are visible from Bennu, 114 mln km away?!?

Because it's a long exposure and 114 million km is really not *that* far as solar system scales go?

0.28 mrad/pixel for camera for the maximum angular Earth-Moon separation would give 12 pixels distance so this checks out.

It's said that the Galilean moons ought to be detectable by naked eye from Earth if you carefully blocked out Jupiter. Never managed to do that myself, though.

If your question is more about the detectability of Earth rather than Earth-Moon system being visible, you could just as easily say how in the world is it possible to detect Ultima Thule from Earth. Apart from Venus, Earth is probably the brightest orbiting object in the sky in this region.

[Blackstar]

How in the world is it possible that Earth, and even Moon, are visible from Bennu, 114 mln km away?!?

Go outside at night and look at Jupiter.

[mcgyver]

What astonished me is not just Earth visibility (with a long exposition it's easy, we could even see UT from hundred millions km away), but the possibility to separate moon from Earth.
But actually math says that a 0.2mm "telescope" would be enough to separate 380.000 km from 114.000.000 km away.


As opposite, to see UT from Earth, a 3200 mm telescope would be needed! (at "standard" exposure).

[catdlr]

Asteroid Approach Telecon - Aug. 24, 2018


OSIRIS-REx Mission
Published on Jan 14, 2019

Recorded audio from the OSIRIS-REx Approach Phase media teleconference on August 24, 2018, with accompanying presenter graphics. Individual graphics are available here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13012

[whitelancer64]

How in the world is it possible that Earth, and even Moon, are visible from Bennu, 114 mln km away?!?

https://www.asteroidmission.org/navcam-earth-moon-bennu-dec19/

The Cassini orbiter has taken images of the Earth and the Moon from Saturn, 1.44 billion kilometers away at the time.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130722.html

[catdlr]

To Bennu and Back: OSIRIS-REx Mission Overview


OSIRIS-REx Mission
Published on Jan 17, 2019

OSIRIS-REx -- NASA's first asteroid sampling spacecraft -- is on a seven-year mission to collect a sample of material from a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu and return it to Earth for study. The hydrated, carbon-rich material that the spacecraft retrieves will help generations of scientists unlock the mysteries of the early Solar System.

In this video, the OSIRIS-REx mission design is illustrated in detail, through artist concept animations, data visualizations, launch footage, and imagery from the spacecraft itself. Each phase of the mission is depicted, from launch through sample return, providing an in-depth look at its journey to Bennu and back.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

[litton4]

How in the world is it possible that Earth, and even Moon, are visible from Bennu, 114 mln km away?!?

https://www.asteroidmission.org/navcam-earth-moon-bennu-dec19/

The Cassini orbiter has taken images of the Earth and the Moon from Saturn, 1.44 billion kilometers away at the time.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130722.html

....and Voyager 1....