At around 23:00 on Sunday night, Beijing time, the seven-year OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample collection program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ushered in the most critical time point - the collected samples finally returned to Earth. According to the latest news from the live broadcast,Observation equipment has photographed that the return capsule has entered the atmosphere and successfully opened its parachute., and landed at 22:52 Beijing time.



Note: Sourced from NASA live broadcast


Note: NASA on-site

The full name of OSIRIS-Rex isOrigin of the solar system, spectral analysis, resource identification, safety assurance, asteroid regolith explorer, the mission is to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu (the phoenix bird in Egyptian mythology) and return it to Earth.This asteroid, with an average radius of only about 250 meters, will help humans understand the origin of the solar system and where the earth and humans came from.

Dante Lauretta, the principal investigator of the project and professor of space science at the University of Arizona, said:We think it was asteroids like Bennu that made the Earth habitable. They may have brought water, various molecules, and various organic matter that triggered the origin of life on Earth."

It is not clear how many asteroid samples are in the returned space capsule this time. Professor Lauretta had previously expected it to reach 250 grams. However, in the mission introduction on NASA's official website, the mission goal mentioned is to recover at least 2.1 ounces of asteroid samples (59.5 grams).

Even if the return capsule only meets the minimum standards set by NASA, it is another major progress for human exploration of space. Japanese scientists have previously extracted and returned samples from asteroids twice, in 2010 and 2020.The weight brought back in 2020 is 5 grams. Professor Lauretta said the more samples brought back, the more molecules chemists can extract from them and the more interesting chemical reactions they can explore.

From the space capsule return exercise conducted by NASA in July this year, we can roughly see what the entire process will look like.




(NASA’s space capsule search exercise in July this year, source: NASA)

According to the mission plan, the space capsule loaded with precious asteroid samples will land at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. After preliminary processing, it will be sent to NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston. Professor Lauretta also said that he is not anxious about the return and recovery of the space capsule to Earth, because the most difficult step in the entire mission is actually finding and landing on the asteroid.

OSIRIS-Rex Project Review

In July 2016, OSIRIS-Rex was launched on board the AtlasV launch vehicle.


After multiple orbital adjustments, OSIRIS-Rex successfully aligned Benn in December 2018 and conducted detailed mapping of the asteroid.

On October 20, 2020, OSIRIS-Rex released its robotic arm and made contact with the surface of the asteroid for the first time, collecting dust and raised small stones by "tapping" the surface of the asteroid. Images returned two days later showed that OSIRIS-Rex had collected samples that met the target requirements, and researchers issued an order to close the return capsule on October 28.


On April 7, 2021, OSIRIS-Rex passed by Bennu for the last time and captured the impact of the last "slap" on the asteroid's surface. On May 10, the OSIRIS-Rex main engine pushed forward at full speed for seven minutes, officially embarking on the two-and-a-half-year "road home."


After releasing the return capsule, the main mission of the OSIRIS-Rex probe has been completed, and now the aircraft has embarked on a new journey - choosing an opportunity to explore the asteroid 99942 (Apophis). According to astronomers’ predictions, Apophis will reach its closest approach to the Earth in 2029, and the closest distance may be only 32,000 kilometers.