TECH

Atlas V launches OSIRIS-REx on mission to asteroid Bennu

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 7:05 p.m. to start seven-year round-trip to Bennu and back.

James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY
An Atlas V rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016.

A NASA probe blasted off Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a seven-year, 4.4 billion-mile journey to grab a chunk of a primitive asteroid and return it to Earth.

A 19-story Atlas V rocket carrying the $800 million OSIRIS-REx mission lifted off at 7:05 p.m., thundering aloft with 1.2 million pounds of thrust.

An Atlas V rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. The mission will retrieve a sample from asteroid Bennu.

Approaching sunset, the United Launch Alliance rocket climbed into the day’s last light, turning a smoky exhaust plume bright white and casting a shadow against the sky as it arced eastward over the Atlantic Ocean.

Nearly an hour later, the rocket dropped off the 4,600-pound spacecraft the size of a small SUV in what ULA said was a perfect orbit, some 3,400 miles above the planet.

“Tonight is a night for celebration,” said NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan. "We are on our way to an asteroid."

The flawless launch started a two-year trek toward a rendezvous with Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid that measures 1,600 feet across and is described as a small mountain in space.

The dark, carbon-rich space rock is a remnant of the solar system’s formation more than 4.5 billion years ago.

Scientists consider it a time capsule that may have preserved traces of organic compounds and water ice like those thought to have seeded oceans and life on Earth, and possibly elsewhere.

“We’re really going back to the dawn of our solar system,” said Dante Lauretta, the mission’s lead scientist from the University of Arizona. “Some areas of this early solar system had key organic materials and ices that accreted, and we think that was really critical for establishing the habitability of our planet.”

That investigation represents the first part of the acronym making up the OSIRIS-REx mission name: “Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer.”

Detailed analysis of the pristine, ancient material can only be done in laboratories on the ground.

To pull that off, the spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin first will take up to two years to create high-resolution, 3-D maps of Bennu’s surface — revealing objects as small as a penny — and analyze what it’s made of.

That information will help pin down the best place for collecting a sample.

In the summer of 2020, the spacecraft will extend an 11-foot robotic arm and drop down to give Bennu a “high-five” or “kiss.”

Lasting five-seconds, the contact will be just long enough for a burst of gas to blow loose gravel and dust through a filter on the end of the arm, trapping it.

The mission’s goal is to collect at least two ounces of the material called regolith, but it could vacuum up more than four pounds.

If the first try fails to gather enough material, two more “touch-and-go” maneuvers are possible.

Even the minimum amount would be the largest sample returned from space since the Apollo moon landings.

An Atlas V rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016. The mission will retrieve a sample from asteroid Bennu.

While orbiting Bennu, the mission will study a phenomenon called the “Yarkovsky effect” that could help protect the planet from a dangerous asteroid collision.

Asteroids absorb sunlight and then emit the energy as heat, creating a slight push that alters their trajectories over long periods of time.

Current calculations project that Bennu, which passes close by Earth every six years, has a very small chance — 1 in 2,700 — of hitting Earth late in the next century.

“If want you want to know where it’s going to be in the future, and we do with this object, then you’ve got to have this part of the equation,” said Lauretta. “And we’re going to measure that very precisely with this mission.”

The mission also is seen as a pathfinder for commercial efforts to mine asteroids or harvest resources for deep space exploration.

Once collected, the sample from Bennu will be stored in a capsule that will be dropped through Earth’s atmosphere in September 2023, targeting a touchdown in the Utah desert southwest of Salt Lake City.

NASA will carefully guard the sample to prevent contamination. Three-quarters of it will be saved for future generations.

“We’ve worked hard to get to this point,” Lauretta said after the launch. “The best times are ahead of us.”

NASA reported that 8,000 people had gathered at the Cape to watch the launch. Dignitaries included NASA chief Charlie Bolden and Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James.

Thursday’s launch was ULA’s eighth this year, and the first in a busy stretch that could three Atlas V rockets fly in less than a month.

The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture aims to launch a commercial satellite next Friday from California, then a national security satellite from Cape Canaveral in early October.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.