With the help of some specialized tools, the final two fasteners were removed.
Getting to the asteroid Bennu, collecting a sample, and bringing it back to Earth took OSIRIS-REx a number of years to accomplish. Even though the scientists working for NASA were eager to examine the sample when it was delivered by the spaceship in September 2023, the sample’s secrets have been kept hidden due to a few bolts that have become jammed. It has been reported by NASA that it has finally released those two remaining fasteners, and this was made possible by certain new tools that were developed expressly for the operation.
Despite the fact that OSIRIS-REx is unable to open the primary sample container, it has already achieved a great deal of success. During the process of designing the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) for the spacecraft, the team for NASA had the expectation that it would be able to harvest at least sixty grams of material from the asteroid Bennu. This would be a significant increase in comparison to the Hayabusa2 spacecraft from Japan, which successfully recovered an amazing 5.4 grams of material from the asteroid Ryugu in the year 2020. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has now gathered more than seventy grams of asteroid dust from the entire area surrounding the container’s housing.
Before the sample container was parachuted back to Earth, NASA built and validated a specific set of tools that would be used to open the TAGSAM, which is made up of 35 different fasteners that are used to seal it. When the technicians finally succeeded in locking the container within the glovebox, they discovered that they were unable to remove two of the fasteners using the tools that were authorized. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) cannot take the risk of contaminating this sample by using prohibited tools because it has not been altered for billions of years.
As soon as they had exhausted all of their possibilities, the technicians stopped working on the fasteners while the engineers from NASA investigated the issue. You can see an example of one of these new multi-part tools in action above. The outcome was the creation of two new tools that were intended expressly to dislodge the TAGSAM bolts. Surgical stainless steel, which is non-magnetic, was used in the fabrication of the instruments since it is the only material that is permitted for usage within the glovebox that is sealed. From the machining marks that are visible on the surface, it is certain that this is not an item that was manufactured in vast quantities.
The crew at the Johnson Space Center, which is where the OSIRIS-Rex sample is being held, indicated that the bolts are free, but the sample has not yet been taken from the facility. After the lid has been opened, the specialists will take high-resolution photographs of the contents of the container before extracting the sample and getting it weighed. We do not know how much regolith the probe collected, but the team anticipates that it will be significantly more than what was predicted. The tremendous amount of material contained within the Bennu caused OSIRIS-REx to struggle to even close the sample cover after it had successfully scooped up a portion of the Bennu.
During the next few weeks, we anticipate that NASA will offer an update on the collected sample. OSIRIS-REx, on the other hand, is carrying on with its operations in space. Apophis is an asteroid that is located close to Earth, and the spacecraft, which is now known as OSIRIS-APEX, will be heading out to achieve a rendezvous with it. In the year 2029, it will still be able to undertake close-up observations, but it will not be able to obtain a sample from this space rock.