Nasa scientists are celebrating after finally getting into the capsule containing a sample of asteroid Bennu more than three months after it landed back on Earth.
Two screws keeping the lid closed had become stuck, trapping the very special space dust inside.
The sample had to be opened in a specially designed, completely sterile environment, with only certain tools allowed inside. This meant when the bolts holding the lid closed became stuck, they could just go in with any old hacksaw.
Instead, the team at the Johnson Space Center has spent weeks designing new multi-part tools – which have now done the job.
The tools include newly custom-fabricated bits made from a specific grade of surgical, non-magnetic stainless steel, the hardest metal approved for use in the pristine curation gloveboxes.
The OSIRIS-REx mission collected rocks and dust, called regolith, from Bennu’s surface in 2020 and carried it 200 million miles back to Earth.
The spacecraft hovered over the asteroid before deploying its touch-and-go sample acquisition mechanism, or TAGSAM, an arm designed to grab a sample of the surface.
Steps now are underway to complete the disassembly of the TAGSAM head to reveal the rest of the rocks and dust delivered by Nasa’s first asteroid sample return mission.
Teams around the world have already been analysing the surprisingly large amount of dust on top of the capsule that made its way back to Earth.
‘Our engineers and scientists have worked tirelessly behind the scenes for months to not only process the more than 70g of material we were able to access previously, but also design, develop, and test new tools that allowed us to move past this hurdle,’ said Eileen Stansbery, a division chief at the Johnson Space Centre.
‘The innovation and dedication of this team has been remarkable. We are all excited to see the remaining treasure OSIRIS-REx holds.’
The remainder of the bulk sample will be fully visible after a few additional disassembly steps, at which point image specialists will take ultra-high-resolution pictures of the sample while it is still inside the TAGSAM head.
This portion of the sample will then be removed and weighed, and the team will be able to determine the total mass of Bennu material captured by the mission.
Dr Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curator at Johnson, said: ‘In addition to the design challenge of being limited to curation-approved materials to protect the scientific value of the asteroid sample, these new tools also needed to function within the tightly-confined space of the glovebox, limiting their height, weight, and potential arc movement.
‘The curation team showed impressive resilience and did incredible work to get these stubborn fasteners off the TAGSAM head so we can continue disassembly. We are overjoyed with the success.’
Prior to the successful removal, the team at Johnson tested the new tools and removal procedures in a rehearsal lab.
After each successful test, engineers increased the assembly torque values and repeated the testing procedures until the team was confident the new tools would be able to achieve the torque needed while minimising the risk of any potential damage to the TAGSAM head or any contamination of the sample within.
Despite not being able to fully disassemble the TAGSAM head, the curation team members had already collected 70.3g of asteroid material from the sample hardware, surpassing the agency’s goal of bringing at least 60g to Earth.
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