NASA capsule bearing asteroid sample in imminent return to Earth

NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission to collect asteroid samples from Bennu culminates September 24 with a soft landing in Utah. The samples will provide insight into the formation of our solar system and how Earth became habitable. The capsule will be airlifted to a clean room and the sample sent to mission partners Japan and Canada. Results will be announced October 11.

A seven-year space voyage comes to its climactic end September 24 when a NASA capsule lands in the desert in the U.S. state of Utah, carrying to Earth the largest asteroid samples ever collected.

Scientists have high hopes for the sample, saying it will provide a better understanding of the formation of our solar system and how Earth became habitable.

The Osiris-Rex probe’s final, fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere will be perilous, but the U.S. space agency is hoping for a soft landing, around 9:00am local (15H00 GMT), in a military test range in northwestern Utah.

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Four years after its 2016 launch, the probe landed on the asteroid Bennu and collected roughly nine ounces (250 grams) of dust from its rocky surface.

Even that small amount, NASA says, should “help us better understand the types of asteroids that could threaten Earth” and cast light “on the earliest history of our solar system,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

“This sample return is really historic,” NASA scientist Amy Simon told AFP. “This is going to be the biggest sample we’ve brought back since the Apollo moon rocks” were returned to Earth.