NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe passes by sample site Nightingale

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe passes by sample site Nightingale

Washington: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to bring an asteroid sample to Earth has successfully executed a 620-meter flyover of the site designated “Nightingale”.

Nightingale, OSIRIS-REx’s primary sample collection site, is located within a crater high in asteroid Bennu’s northern hemisphere.

To perform the pass this week, the spacecraft left its 1.2-km safe home orbit and flew an almost 11-hour transit over the asteroid, aiming its science instruments toward the 16-m wide sample site before returning to orbit, NASA said.

Science observations from this flyover are the closest taken of a sample site to date.

The primary goal of the Nightingale flyover was to collect the high-resolution imagery required to complete the spacecraft’s Natural Feature Tracking image catalog, which will document the sample collection site’s surface features - such as boulders and craters.

During the sampling event, which is scheduled for late August, the spacecraft will use this catalog to navigate with respect to Bennu’s surface features, allowing it to autonomously predict where on the sample site it will make contact.

Several of the spacecraft’s other instruments also took observations of the Nightingale site during the flyover event.

A similar flyover of the backup sample collection site, Osprey, is scheduled for February 11, NASA said. (IANS)

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