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NASA is Protecting Its Precious

1:24

Asteroid Bennu Sample The

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OSIRIS-REx capsule containing a treasure trove

1:28

of space rocks has now

1:31

arrived at Johnson Space Center, where

1:33

scientists will gingerly unpack it. By

1:36

Ramin Skiba. On

1:39

Sunday, a capsule carrying a one-of-a-kind

1:41

sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu

1:44

careened through the atmosphere and landed in the

1:46

Utah desert. But the OSIRIS-REx

1:48

mission isn't quite over. That precious

1:51

cargo needs to be kept safe, then

1:53

carefully opened one step at a time before

1:55

any science can be done. Technicians

1:58

at NASA's Johnson Space Center Space Center

2:01

in Houston will now begin dismantling the

2:03

capsule piece by piece to get down

2:05

to an interior canister containing the asteroid

2:07

sample. The methodical process

2:09

is so that someone doesn't accidentally

2:11

harm the canister or compromise future

2:14

scientific research. We are

2:16

really excited and impatient to see

2:18

the sample, but we're patient enough

2:20

to open it progressively and ensure

2:22

it's safe and pristine, says Pierre

2:24

Hanakur, a co-investigator in the OSIRIS-REx

2:27

collaboration. He's a member of

2:29

the Quick Look team at Johnson that will

2:31

do the initial imaging and chemical analysis of

2:33

any fine particles that are clinging to the

2:35

outside of the canister. Inside

2:37

that canister could hold as much as

2:40

9 ounces or 250 grams of space

2:42

rocks and dust. Bennu

2:44

is a lifeless rock, and Dante

2:46

Loretta, a planetary scientist and head

2:49

of the OSIRIS-REx team, emphasizes that

2:51

they're not expecting to find biological

2:53

material. No life forms that

2:56

we know of could survive that kind of

2:58

environment. We're more worried about

3:00

Earth biology contaminating the sample, he

3:02

said at a NASA post-landing press

3:04

conference on Sunday. Still,

3:06

Bennu is a carbon-rich asteroid that has

3:08

been around for billions of years and

3:11

could reveal information about the assembly of

3:13

rocky planets, including Earth in the early

3:15

solar system. After

3:17

a pulse-pounding descent during which the atmosphere

3:19

heated the capsule to a scorching 5,000

3:22

degrees Fahrenheit, it touched down charred

3:24

but intact at 852 a.m. Mountain

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Time at a Department of Defense

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testing range in Utah. This

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code wired. Military

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personnel were charged with checking that

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no unexploded ordnance lay within the

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landing area and that no toxic

4:56

gases were emanating from the still

4:58

hot craft. The NASA

5:00

recovery team began by taking samples of

5:02

the desert ground and atmosphere where the

5:04

capsule landed. Then they gingerly

5:07

loaded it into a helicopter and

5:09

transported it to a temporary clean room and

5:11

a hanger on the training range. In

5:14

the clean room personnel wore bunny

5:16

suits covering their clothes, shoes, and

5:18

hair to ensure that fabric fibers,

5:20

hair, and skin cells didn't contaminate

5:23

the container. They opened the

5:25

top of the capsule and conducted a

5:27

nitrogen purge, pumping in gas

5:29

to make sure that contaminants like

5:31

oxygen, moisture, and earthly bacteria don't

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somehow make their way inside. On

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Monday they flew the partially opened

5:38

capsule on a Boeing transport aircraft

5:40

to a clean room at Johnson

5:43

Space Center's curation facility. There

5:45

they'll continue taking apart the capsule over the

5:47

next few days. The interior canister

5:49

will be moved to a glove box,

5:52

a sealed container filled with hydrogen that

5:54

technicians can access only by sticking their

5:57

gloved hands through a partition. They

5:59

will also remove the collector head of the

6:01

robotic arm that snagged the sample and

6:03

place it in another dedicated glove box.

6:07

On October 11th, NASA plans a public

6:09

reveal of what's inside the canister. While

6:12

it will take some time to do

6:14

in-depth studies of that main sample, the

6:16

reveal may include HanaCorp's team's preliminary findings

6:18

about dust particles on the canister's exterior.

6:21

This dust would have attached to the canister in 2020,

6:25

when the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft grabbed the sample

6:27

and nearly spilled it into space. Once

6:30

the canister is finally open, the curatorial

6:32

team at Johnson plans to divvy up

6:34

the valuable rocks among some 200 scientists

6:38

worldwide. "'These samples are

6:40

an amazing treasure trove for generations

6:42

of scientists,' said Eileen Stansbury, a

6:45

chief scientist at Johnson during Sunday's news

6:47

conference. "'If all goes well,

6:49

those samples will last for decades and

6:51

can be used as new analysis tools

6:54

are developed.'" A half-century

6:56

after the Apollo team, scientists are still

6:58

doing research using lunar regolith samples, like

7:00

for a recent study about growing plants

7:02

on the moon. OSIRIS-REx

7:05

is NASA's first asteroid sample return,

7:07

and the capsule is expected to

7:09

harbor a much larger sample than

7:11

those brought back by the Japanese

7:14

space agency's Hayabusa missions, which visited

7:16

the asteroids Ryugu and Itakawa. NASA

7:19

has more sample return projects in the works.

7:22

That includes collaborating with Japan's MMX mission,

7:24

which will launch next year to visit

7:26

the Martian moon Phobos and return a

7:29

sample in 2029. NASA

7:31

will also use the Artemis program's planned

7:33

lunar landing in 2026 to dig up

7:35

new moon samples, and the

7:37

agency intends to bring back regolith from Mars,

7:40

which is being collected by the Perseverance rover.

7:44

Thanks for listening to WIRED. I'm Zee

7:46

Groveson, and for more stories just like this

7:48

one, visit us at wired.com. Subscribe

7:54

everywhere you listen to podcasts,

7:56

and get more science news

7:58

at wired.com/science.