70.32g of dust has been collected, NASA recovery of Benu asteroid rock samples meets challenges

CTOnews.com, December 13 (Xinhua)-- NASA has downgraded its Osiris-Rex mission forecast, reducing the weight of rock samples collected from the Bennu asteroid from 250g to 170g.

Image source: NASA / R.MARKOWITZCTOnews.com learned from the report that NASA is using the sample collection system TagSam to recover rock samples and has successfully extracted 70.32g of dust, but encountered challenges in the collection process due to two unscrewed latches that were not unscrewed as planned.

The NASA team in charge of the mission, which had planned to collect 60 grams of rock, is still enthusiastic. Although the collection system has encountered challenges, it can be predicted that the mission has been successful to some extent.

Lead researcher Dante Lauretta (Dante Lauretta) stressed:

We originally planned to collect 60 grams of rock samples, but now we have collected more than 70 grams.

Some team members have been assigned to design new tools to open TagSam, and the rest of the rock samples are expected to be taken out next year.

So far, the largest piece of Bennu extracted from TagSam is 3.5cm in diameter, but most of the 70g are made up of submillimeter-sized tiny fragments.