Tagging Bennu
On October 20,
after a careful approach
to the boulder-strewn surface, the
OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's arm reached out and touched asteroid Bennu.
Dubbed a
Touch-And-Go (TAG) sampling event, the 30 centimeter wide
sampling head (TAGSAM) appears to crush some of the rocks in this
snapshot.
The close-up scene was recorded by the spacecraft's SamCam
some 321 million kilometers from planet Earth,
just after surface contact.
One second later, the spacecraft fired nitrogen gas
from a bottle intended to blow a substantial amount of
Bennu's regolith
into the sampling head, collecting the loose surface material.
Data show the spacecraft spent approximately 5 more seconds in contact
with Bennu's Nightingale sample site and then performed its back-away burn.
Timelapse frames from SamCam
reveal the aftermath.