NASA is the national space research organization of the United States. This is the first time a NASA spacecraft has landed on an asteroid. Their spacecraft 'Osiris-Rex' landed on the asteroid 'Bennu' to collect dust. NASA spacecraft made its first landing at Bennu on Tuesday night, Bangladesh time. NASA said in a statement.
The asteroid in which NASA's spacecraft landed is located 200 million miles from Earth. The asteroid belt ('asteroid belt') between Mars and Jupiter is the address of this asteroid. According to the report, NASA spacecraft has collected soil, pebbles and rocks from the upper part of the asteroid after descending for less than 16 seconds. It will take a week to find out how many samples have been collected. We will see if there is a need to download again. If the sampling is successful and everything is OK, Osiris-Rex will return to Earth in 2023.
The landing of a spacecraft on an asteroid is extremely dangerous. This is because the surface of asteroids is so uneven that danger can occur as soon as they land there. Asteroids are not landed in the same way as a lander is landed on a planet or satellite. Even the first lander landed on comet '7 / P Shurumov-Gerashimenko four years ago, but this time it did not land at Bennu. Samples were brought from Bennu just by touching the feet for a few seconds. This mission is named 'Touch and Go' (abbreviated as 'TAG' or 'Tag'). The purpose was to collect 80 grams of samples.
The NASA team involved in the project said the landing was possible as per their expectations and the spacecraft took off from the asteroid Bennu. "I can't believe it's possible," Dante Loretta, a top scientist at the University of Arizona, told the Associated Press. Everything has been done according to plan with this spacecraft. Work on the NASA project has been delayed for two months due to the Corona epidemic.
NASA has conducted this mission following the Hayabusa 2 mission of Japan. The Japanese spacecraft has collected samples from the 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid Ryigu and will return to Earth in December. NASA plans to conduct three more asteroid missions in the next two years.
إرسال تعليق