"What is it? It must have been hard and different than probably the bulk of the asteroid." Heading homeĮarly Sunday morning, mission operators will tell the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to jettison the sample return capsule, sending it on a collision course with Earth. "We're really excited to see it," says Lauretta. Once they do, they expect to see everything from dust to pebbles to larger rocks like the one that Lauretta calls "the troublemaker" - the one that kept their collection device from sealing up. In the end, they estimate that they managed to safeguard about 8 ounces of asteroid rock, but they won't know for sure until they open the canister up. "We had planned to have a very leisurely operation to stow it," says Dworkin. Mission managers scrambled to get this collection device into its return canister so that the canister could be closed up, trapping everything inside. "Seeing those particles drifting away.every particle is a discovery not made. That moment "was gut-wrenching," says Jason Dworkin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, a project scientist for the mission. Images from an on-board camera showed them floating away. This created a gap that allowed pebbles and dust to escape. They'd grabbed so much that a Mylar flap that was supposed to seal up the collection device had gotten jammed open by a rock that appeared to be about an inch across. Once the spacecraft had backed away from the asteroid and they stopped to assess their treasure, however, their elation turned to alarm. Shockingly, the arm basically plunged in, as the asteroid behaved more like a liquid than a solid, suggesting it's composed of rocky bits just barely held together by gravity.Īt first the researchers were ecstatic, as they managed to recover far more asteroid stuff than their original goal of about two ounces, or 60 grams. Science A NASA Spacecraft Successfully Touched Down On A Rocky Asteroid "I was like, 'How did I get this job? I'm not supposed to be selling Bennu memorabilia,'" Lauretta recalls, saying that his dream-self then thought, "If we can build a gift shop, why am I stressing so much about getting all this sample? I could just pick some up right now." In one dream, for example, he found himself in a gift shop on the rocky asteroid. The anxiety of the mission's critical moments often gives him strange, vivid dreams. "To me, the moment the parachute opens, I'll know we've made it. Lauretta, who has devoted about two decades of his life to this asteroid-sampling effort, says that he and his colleagues have already endured a number of heart-pounding, nail-biting episodes along the way. "That would be just heartbreaking, right?" says Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, the principal investigator for NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, who compared that scenario to fumbling a football in the end zone while trying to make what would be a winning touchdown in the final seconds of a game. Last but not least all my incredible PATRONS who helped make it possible for me to create this amazing talented team!Īlso all titles of clips might be a nod to a musical of some kind, that might be a thing that happens.Scientists want to study these rocks to learn more about the chemistry that ultimately led to the emergence of life on Earth - assuming the capsule parachutes down unscathed and its contents don't get destroyed in a crash landing. My good friends Dan, Dave, and Ray who helped me make this happen, Ross for letting me use his cintiq when I needed to work on these shots, Don and Maxwell for lending their voices to this project, and wanting to be involved! Huge additional thanks to the incredible team helping me make this happen and their incredible talents making my crazy characters look good! In this clip we are introduced to Angel Dust, and all his promiscuous glory. Please consider supporting the show on Patreon or by buying a shirt or bit of merch, proceeds go to the project budget!
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