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[Music]

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There are many important
reasons for studying asteroids

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like the target of
OSIRIS-REx, asteroid Bennu.

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First and foremost, for me
especially, they're geologic

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remnants from the dawn
of our solar system.

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They're literally the first
material that formed around our

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star, and they represent the
building blocks of planets, and

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we hope, in the case of Bennu of
life, and the reason that Earth

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may be a habitable planet in
the form of delivering water and

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other important
volatile material.

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When we look at asteroids which
are these primitive objects,

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these little leftover pieces
from solar system formation, and

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we find they may have organics,
then that tells us perhaps the

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conditions for life could have
erupted anywhere in the solar

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system, and Earth
was just right.

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When we study meteorites, we
think they represent these

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asteroids and their different
histories, but they've all

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interacted with the Earth's
atmosphere, its biosphere, its

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hydrosphere, and so we
don't know what effect just

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interacting with the Earth
has had on these meteorites.

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We really want to get samples
that are pristine, and so we can

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do all of those things
through this mission.

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OSIRIS-REx is a mission in
the NASA New Frontiers Program.

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Our objective is to travel out
to a near-Earth asteroid named

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Bennu, survey that object in
great detail to understand its

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geology, its mineralogy and
composition, ultimately select a

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single location on the
asteroid's surface to acquire a

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sample, and return that material
back to the Earth for scientific

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analysis.

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Asteroid Bennu is a fragment
of the early solar system, an

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un-melted, unaltered piece of
the origin of the solar system.

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It preserves the ingredients,
the raw materials that went into

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the formation of
planets, the formation of life.

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By bringing a sample back to the
Earth, such as OSIRIS-REx will

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do with samples of Bennu in
2023, we'll be able to look at

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the samples in laboratories
around the world, to understand

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in great detail the nature of
the sample and its place in the

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origin of the solar system.

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The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft
launched in 2016, and it's

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actually taken us two years to
get to the asteroid Bennu, and

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in that time we
had an Earth flyby.

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So, we used an Earth flyby in
2017 to change the plane of our

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orbit to match Bennu's orbit
plane, and it's also provided a

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great opportunity from a flight
dynamics perspective to really

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calibrate our models and learn
how to fly the spacecraft which

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will help us in the really
challenging part of the mission,

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which is orbiting in the
low-gravity environment of the

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asteroid.

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Over the past few months, the
flight dynamics team has been

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getting images of the asteroid
Bennu, and it started out as

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just a very small point source
in the camera, and it's been

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getting bigger and bigger and
bigger in the field of view.

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And that's allowed us to perform
optical navigation, to refine

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our prediction of the asteroid's
orbit, and allow us to more

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precisely navigate and target
our approach to the asteroid.

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As OSIRIS-REx approaches the
asteroid, we've done a series of

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braking maneuvers called
Asteroid Approach Maneuvers to

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slow down the spacecraft, so
that we can get into orbit

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around the
asteroid later this year.

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We're also taking lots of images
of Bennu to understand its

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rotation, look for natural
satellites, and potential dust

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plumes.

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This is an extremely exciting
time on OSIRIS-REx as we're just

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poised at arrival at Bennu.

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And one of the most exciting
things to us, and relieving too

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to the engineers, is how closely
the asteroid has resembled what

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we had predicted.

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Early on our science team, prior
to launch, had come up with of a

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model of what they thought the
asteroid would look like, based

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purely on ground-based radar
observations from Arecibo, and

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from that they created a
reference asteroid that we used

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as the requirements to
design the mission against.

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But no one could be sure that
the asteroid would really look

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like the scientists had
predicted, so it's been a

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tremendous relief to us to find
that the actual Bennu is very

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similar to what the
scientists had predicted.

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So, the science
team really nailed it.

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Well right now as we're
approaching asteroid Bennu,

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we're looking for debris or
other objects that are orbiting

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the asteroid just in case
we need to avoid those.

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And then once we arrive on
December 3 we'll perform

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Preliminary Survey, and in
Preliminary Survey we fly over

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the north pole, south pole,
and the middle of the asteroid.

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This helps us to map the gravity
of the asteroid and understand

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how to operate near
such a small body.

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Additionally, this will be the
first time that we get close-up

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pictures of the surface, and
we'll know how smooth or rocky

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the surface that
we're going to study is.

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As we get closer to asteroid
Bennu, we'll begin to map its

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surface in higher detail.

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What we'll be able to do is
first identify the distribution

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of rocks and particles that
might pose a hazard to the

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sampling mechanism on the
spacecraft, and we'll also get a

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better sense of what the shape
of Bennu is like at smaller

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scales.

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Looking at Bennu in more and
more detail is going to help us

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identify all the areas that we
shouldn't go to grab a sample

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from.

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Throughout 2019 we'll be doing
global characterization of the

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asteroid, basically making
maps of the entire surface.

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We're interested
in its topography.

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Are there craters?

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Where are the boulders, the
valleys, the mountains of the

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asteroid?

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And then we want to understand
the distribution of geologic

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materials: are we finding
different patches of minerals in

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one location versus another, and
why are certain areas that have

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a composition and
others maybe different?

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We're going to be looking most
importantly for areas where we

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can collect a sample.

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OSIRIS-REx will collect a sample
from Bennu using our TAGSAM,

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which is the Touch And Go
Sample Acquisition Mechanism.

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What that is, is an arm
connected to this sampler head

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that you see here.

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This is similar in size to
an air filter from a car.

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How this mechanism works is
there's compressed gas that is

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released that will stir up the
regolith from Bennu, store it

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into this canister, which we
will then put inside of our

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sample release capsule
and bring back to Earth.

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We will collect the sample of
Bennu in 2020 and return it to

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Earth in 2023.

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Once we're in the vicinity
of our home world, about

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four-and-a-half hours
before impacting the top of the

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atmosphere, the spacecraft spins
up and releases that sample

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return capsule.

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The spacecraft fires its engines
to perform a deflection burn,

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going off into orbit around
the sun, and the return capsule

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enters the Earth's atmosphere,
targeting a landing in the Utah

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desert.

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I'll be there on site when we
open that capsule up and we see

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those samples for the first
time, and science begins at that

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point on the next phase of the
mission, the sample analysis

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period.

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[Music]

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[Satellite beeping]