NASA Defeats Pesky Lid That Trapped The Biggest Asteroid Dust Sample Ever

A NASA curation team was finally able to remove two stubborn fasteners that have been keeping the space agency from being able to retrieve the remainder of a sample collected from asteroid Bennu. The curation team had to pause the disassembly of the TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head from OSIRIS-Rex in mid-October in order to develop new tools approved for use.

OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security) was the first mission to collect a sample from an asteroid. The spacecraft itself did not land back on Earth, but instead continued on to a new mission, OSIRIS-APEX. However, before moving on to a new adventure in space, it dropped off a sample that was collected from asteroid Bennu.

The dropped sample landed in the Utah desert, where it was successfully located and retrieved. Following retrieval, the team was able to collect 70.3 grams of rocks and dust from the sampler hardware, but was unable to open the actual container that contained the rest due to the two pesky fasteners. According to NASA, two new multi-part tools were then specially designed and produced, which include newly custom-fabricated bits made with a specific grade of surgical, non-magnetic stainless steel.


“Our engineers and scientists have worked tirelessly behind the scenes for months to not only process the more than 70 grams of material we were able to access previously, but also design, develop, and test new tools that allowed us to move past this hurdle,” explained Eileen Stansbery, Division Chief for Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science. “The innovation and dedication of this team has been remarkable.”

Initial findings of the already collected 4.5-billion-year-old Bennu sample show evidence of high-carbon content and water, which NASA says could show building blocks of life on Earth may be reside in the sample. The space agency says the sample will be studied for decades to come, hoping to learn more about who we are as a species and where we come from, as well as giving a “glimpse into what lies beyond.”

NASA’s curation team have already been successful in fulfilling all the sample requests received from the OSIRIS-REx science team thus far, and have hermetically sealed some of the Bennu sample for preservation over multiple decades. As for the newly named OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft, it is now on a mission to study the physical changes to asteroid Apophis after the asteroid’s rare close encounter with Earth in 2029.