Is NASA Mining Asteroid

If everything goes according to plan, OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule will separate from the spacecraft, enter the Earth’s atmosphere and parachute safely to Earth for recovery at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range, located about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City.

“The OSIRIS-REx curation team is excitedly preparing for the Bennu samples,” said Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx lead sample curator at Johnson. The rocks and dust, called regolith, were collected from Bennu’s surface in 2020. Bennu is likely to be a well preserved, 4.5 billion year old remanent of the early solar system, so the samples should provide insight into the role that similar asteroids played in the formation of planets and the delivery of organic material and water to Earth that may have ultimately led to life. Data collected from the OSIRIS-REx mission will also help scientists better understand asteroids that could impact Earth and inform future asteroid deflection efforts. To investigate these questions, scientists must carefully preserve, protect, and handle the asteroid samples, which will be examined and stored in a new curation facility managed by NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science division, or ARES, at Johnson. The division is home to the world’s most extensive collection of extraterrestrial materials – including lunar rocks, solar wind particles, meteorites, and comet samples. For two years, from late 2023 to late 2025, the science team will characterize the samples and conduct the analysis needed to meet the mission’s science goals. NASA will preserve at least 70 percent of the sample at Johnson for further research by scientists worldwide, including future generations of scientists. A cohort of more than 200 scientists around the world will explore the regolith’s properties, including researchers from many US institutions, NASA partners JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), and other scientists from around the world.