OSIRIS-REx Sample Recovery: Field Rehearsal One

  • Released Friday, July 7, 2023
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Recovery team members rehearse bagging and moving OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, ahead of the sample’s return to Earth Sept. 24.

Credit: Lockheed Martin Space

OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid and will deliver a cupful of rocky material from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu to Utah’s West Desert on September 24, 2023. Team members from the mission gathered at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado on June 27-28 to rehearse the sample return event. They practiced bagging and moving an engineering model of the sample return capsule from a staged landing area to a nearby cleanroom. The event was the first of three increasingly realistic rehearsals prior to sample recovery.

Learn more on the OSIRIS-REx blog.

The OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule model sits poised ready for its practice field recovery at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

The OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule model sits poised ready for its practice field recovery at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.

Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Pictured here following the field recovery rehearsal is the entire OSIRIS-REx mission recovery and curation team, consisting of members from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin. Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Pictured here following the field recovery rehearsal is the entire OSIRIS-REx mission recovery and curation team, consisting of members from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin.

Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery team members rehearse bagging and moving OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, ahead of the sample’s return to Earth Sept. 24. Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery team members rehearse bagging and moving OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, ahead of the sample’s return to Earth Sept. 24.

Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

OSIRIS-REx recovery team members practice sampling dirt from around the capsule landing site at a June rehearsal at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

OSIRIS-REx recovery team members practice sampling dirt from around the capsule landing site at a June rehearsal at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.

Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery and curation team members rehearse moving OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule into a clean room at Lockheed Martin designed to closely resemble the one that will be on site at the U.S. military’s Utah Test & Training Range Sept. 24.Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery and curation team members rehearse moving OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule into a clean room at Lockheed Martin designed to closely resemble the one that will be on site at the U.S. military’s Utah Test & Training Range Sept. 24.

Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery and curation team members rehearse disassembly of OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule to prep it for shipment to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery and curation team members rehearse disassembly of OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule to prep it for shipment to NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery and curation teams rehearse the processing of the sample canister in a clean room at Lockheed Martin designed to closely resemble the one that will be on site at the U.S. military’s Utah Test & Training Range for landing in September. Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

Recovery and curation teams rehearse the processing of the sample canister in a clean room at Lockheed Martin designed to closely resemble the one that will be on site at the U.S. military’s Utah Test & Training Range for landing in September.

Credit: Dusty Volkel/Lockheed Martin Space

For More Information

See NASA.gov

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Lockheed Martin Space

This page was originally published on Friday, July 7, 2023.
This page was last updated on Thursday, July 6, 2023 at 7:52 PM EDT.

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