OSIRIS-Rex – Atlas V 411 (AV-067) – Canaveral SLC-41 – 08.09.2016 23:05 UTC

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 5 мин. назад

Today is the day! In T-4 hours I'll be going into orbit around #asteroid Bennu for the first time!

Bennu will be the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft, and my path around it will mark the closest orbit of a planetary body by any spacecraft. #HappyNewYear2019 #orexnav

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KinetX SNAFD‏ @KinetXSNAFD 9:11 - 31 дек. 2018 г.

Interesting contrasts between @NASA's two New Year's space encounters: Relative velocity of @OSIRISREx to Bennu: 0.13 mph (6 cm/s) Closet approach distance (during first orbit): 0.9 miles (1.4 km) at 2300 UTC (2 pm ET) on Jan 1.

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Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 26 мин. назад

Here is the distance of OSIRIS-REX from Bennu during Nov and Dec (and forward to first few days of Jan) based on JPL Horizons data

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Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 4 мин. назад

The @OSIRISREx probe should now be in a 1.5 x 2.0 km orbit around Bennu.

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OSIRIS-REx Orbital Insertion

OSIRIS-REx Mission

Опубликовано: 31 дек. 2018 г.

On Dec. 31, 2018, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will enter orbit around asteroid Bennu — setting new records for the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft and the closest orbit of a planetary body by any spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx will remain in orbit until mid-February 2019 when the spacecraft will begin a series of flybys that allow it to conduct a more detailed survey of the asteroid's surface. It will enter orbit a second time in mid-2019.

(1:23)

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 43 мин. назад

It's official! I'm in orbit around #asteroid Bennu -- now the smallest body ever orbited by a spacecraft. My snug path around the asteroid also sets a new record for the closest orbit of a planetary body by any spacecraft.

#HappyNewYear, indeed! More http://bit.ly/BennuOrbit 




KinetX SNAFD‏ @KinetXSNAFD 35 мин. назад

Successful orbit insertion!!! What a truly amazing milestone. We've been analyzing and tweaking the design of this challenging orbit insertion for over 10 years! #orexnav

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https://www.asteroidmission.org/?latest-news=nasas-osiris-rex-spacecraft-enters-close-orbit-around-bennu-breaking-record

NASA's OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Enters Close Orbit Around Bennu, Breaking Record

December 31, 2018 - At 2:43 p.m. EST on December 31, while many on Earth prepared to welcome the New Year, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, 70 million miles (110 million kilometers) away, carried out a single, eight-second burn of its thrusters – and broke a space exploration record. The spacecraft entered into orbit around the asteroid Bennu, and made Bennu the smallest object ever to be orbited by a spacecraft.


On Dec. 31, 2018, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft went into orbit around asteroid Bennu for the first time.

"The team continued our long string of successes by executing the orbit-insertion maneuver perfectly," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "With the navigation campaign coming to an end, we are looking forward to the scientific mapping and sample site selection phase of the mission."

Lauretta, along with his team, spent the last day of 2018 with his feet planted on Earth, but his mind focused on space. "Entering orbit around Bennu is an amazing accomplishment that our team has been planning for years," Lauretta said.

Inching around the asteroid at a snail's pace, OSIRIS-REx's first orbit marks a leap for humankind. Never before has a spacecraft fr om Earth circled so close to such a small space object – one with barely enough gravity to keep a vehicle in a stable orbit.

Now, the spacecraft will circle Bennu about a mile (1.75 kilometers) from its center, closer than any other spacecraft has come to its celestial object of study. (Previously the closest orbit of a planetary body was in May 2016, when the Rosetta spacecraft orbited about four miles (seven kilometers) from the center of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.) The comfortable distance is necessary to keep the spacecraft locked to Bennu, which has a gravity force only 5-millionths as strong as Earth's. The spacecraft is scheduled to orbit Bennu through mid-February at a leisurely 62 hours per orbit.

Now that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is closer to Bennu, physical details about the asteroid will leap into sharper focus, and the spacecraft's tour of this rubble pile of primordial debris will become increasingly detailed and focused.

Спойлер

"Our orbit design is highly dependent on Bennu's physical properties, such as its mass and gravity field, which we didn't know before we arrived," said OSIRIS-REx's flight dynamics system manager Mike Moreau, who is based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"Up until now, we had to account for a wide variety of possible scenarios in our computer simulations to make sure we could safely navigate the spacecraft so close to Bennu. As the team learned more about the asteroid, we incorporated new information to hone in on the final orbit design," he said.

The simulations have played a critical role. The OSIRIS-REx mission, after all, was designed based on complex computer programs that predicted — quite accurately, as it turns out — the properties of Bennu and how the spacecraft's trajectory would behave. This diligent preparation allowed the team to navigate the vehicle safely to Bennu in December and put some questions to rest (there are, indeed, signs of ancient water preserved in Bennu's rocks) and to fly over its poles and equator in a preliminary survey that led to some surprises (Bennu has many large boulders).

Having completed the preliminary survey of Bennu with a flyby of its south pole on December 16, the spacecraft moved to a safe 31 miles (50 kilometers) away from the asteroid to give the navigation team a chance to regroup and prepare for orbit insertion. Next, Lockheed Martin engineers programmed the spacecraft to begin moving back to a position about nine miles (15 kilometers) over Bennu's north pole to prepare for three burns of its thrusters over the course of 10 days that would place the spacecraft into orbit.


Even though OSIRIS-REx is in the most stable orbit possible, Bennu's gravitational pull is so tenuous that keeping the spacecraft safe will require occasional adjustments, said Dan Wibben, OSIRIS-REx maneuver and trajectory design lead at KinetX Aerospace in Simi Valley, California.

"The gravity of Bennu is so small, forces like solar radiation and thermal pressure from Bennu's surface become much more relevant and can push the spacecraft around in its orbit much more than if it were orbiting around Earth or Mars, wh ere gravity is by far the most dominant force," he said.

The OSIRIS-REx navigation team will use "trim" maneuvers to slightly thrust the spacecraft in one direction or another to correct its orbit and counter these small forces. If the spacecraft drifts away from Bennu, or some other problem forces it into safe mode, it has been programmed to fly away from the asteroid to stay safe from impact.

"It's simple logic: always burn toward the Sun if something goes wrong," said Coralie Adam, OSIRIS-REx lead optical navigation engineer at KinetX. Engineers can navigate the spacecraft back into orbit if it drifts away, Adam said, though that's unlikely to happen.

The navigation and spacecraft operations teams are focused on the first orbital phase. Their primary goal is to transition away from star-based navigation, which allowed the team to locate the spacecraft based on pictures of the star formations around it taken by the cameras onboard. Navigators use methods like this since there is no GPS in deep space and we can't see the spacecraft from Earth-based telescopes. From this point forward, though, the OSIRIS-REx team will rely on landmarks on Bennu's surface to track OSIRIS-REx, a more precise technique that will ultimately guide them to a sample-collection site clear of boulders and large rocks, said Adam.

"After conducting a global imaging and mapping campaign during our recent preliminary survey phase, the science team has created 3-D models of Bennu's terrain that we're going to begin using for navigation around the asteroid," she said.

Another critical objective of this orbital phase, Adam said, is to get a better handle on Bennu's mass and gravity, features that will influence the planning of the rest of the mission, notably the short touchdown on the surface for sample collection in 2020. In the case of Bennu, scientists can only measure these features by getting OSIRIS-REx very close to the surface to see how its trajectory bends from Bennu's gravitational pull.

"The Orbital A phase will help improve our detailed models for Bennu's gravity field, thermal properties, orientation, and spin rate," said Wibben. "This, in turn, will allow us to refine our trajectory designs for the even more challenging flight activities we will perform in 2019."

The December 31 maneuver to place the spacecraft into orbit about Bennu is the first of many exciting navigation activities planned for the mission. The OSIRIS-REx team will resume science operations in late February. At that point, the spacecraft will perform a series of close flybys of Bennu for several months to take high-resolution images of every square inch of the asteroid to help select a sampling site. During the summer of 2020, the spacecraft will briefly touch the surface of Bennu to retrieve a sample. The OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to deliver the sample to Earth in September 2023.

Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission's science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

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https://tass.ru/kosmos/5969206

31 ДЕК 2018, 19:55
Аппарат OSIRIS-REx выходит на орбиту вокруг астероида Бенну

Он станет самым мелким небесным телом, вокруг которого будет обращаться космический аппарат

НЬЮ-ЙОРК, 31 декабря. /ТАСС/. Американский космический аппарат OSIRIS-REx через четыре часа выйдет на орбиту вокруг астероида Бенну. Об этом сообщило в понедельник в Twitter Национальное управление по аэронавтике и исследованиям космического пространства (NASA).

"Этот день настал! - говорится в сообщении. - Через четыре часа аппарат впервые выходит на орбиту вокруг астероида. Бенну станет самым мелким небесным телом, вокруг которого будет обращаться космический аппарат, и орбита будет проходить ближе к поверхности, чем у любого другого космического аппарата, сближавшегося с небесным телом".

Согласно расчетам, для выхода на орбиту вокруг астероида маневровые двигатели аппарата будет включены на 8 секунд в 14:43 по времени восточного побережья США (22:43 мск).

Станция OSIRIS-REx, выведенная в космос в сентябре 2016 года, оснащена несколькими приборами, в том числе фотокамерами, спектрометрами и лазерным высотомером. В августе нынешнего года она начала сложный маневр сближения с астероидом, который движется по орбите со скоростью 63 тыс. миль в час (101388 км/ч): после нескольких включений бортовых двигателей аппарат приблизился к астероиду в начале декабря и произвел картографирование его поверхности. Теперь аппарат будет совершать обороты вокруг Бенну на высоте от 1,4 до 2 км от поверхности. Согласно программе полета, он будет находиться на орбите вокруг астероида для выбора подходящей точки для забора образца грунта.

Сама операция по забору грунта запланирована на середину 2020 года: манипулятор, снабженный специальным пневматическим устройством, коснется поверхности астероида. В общей сложности сотрудники NASA рассчитывают собрать от 60 г до 2 кг астероидного грунта. Возвращение на Землю спускаемой капсулы с собранным грунтом намечено на сентябрь 2023 года.

Бенну имеет диаметр около 550 м и вращается по эллиптической орбите вокруг Солнца. Астрономы относят его к Аполлонам - астероидам, орбиты которых пересекают орбиту Земли. Вероятность столкновения с ним составляет 1 к 4000. Его падение на Землю было бы эквивалентно взрыву мощностью 2700 мегатонн.

OSIRIS-REx является одним из трех аппаратов, созданных экспертами NASA для запуска в дальний космос по программе New Frontiers. Два других - это межпланетная станция New Horizons, которая через несколько часов должна сблизиться с астероидом Ultima Thule и автоматическая межпланетная станция Juno, при помощи которой ведутся исследования Юпитера.

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/12/31/osiris-rex-bennu-orbit-insertion/

OSIRIS-REx completes New Year's Eve orbit insertion burn at asteroid
December 31, 2018 | Stephen Clark


This mosaic image of asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 PolyCam images collected on Dec. 2 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fr om a range of 15 miles (24 kilometers). Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

After four weeks of navigating in the vicinity of asteroid Bennu, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its thrusters for eight seconds Monday to slip into orbit around the carbon-rich object, making Bennu the smallest planetary body ever orbited by a spacecraft.

OSIRIS-REx arrived at Bennu on Dec. 3, ending a journey fr om Earth that lasted more than two years and spanned 1.2 billion miles (2 billion kilometers). Since then, the robotic spacecraft has surveyed the 1,600-foot-wide (492-meter) asteroid through a series of flybys as close as 4.4 miles (7 kilometers) over Bennu's north pole, south pole and equator to measure the asteroid's gravitational tug on OSIRIS-REx, which helped scientists determine the object's mass.

The mass estimate helped navigators refine the parameters of OSIRIS-REx's maneuver to enter orbit around Bennu. The craft's thrusters ignited for 8 seconds at 2:43:55 p.m. EST (1943:55 GMT) Monday to slightly adjust OSIRIS-REx's velocity, nudging it just enough for Bennu's tenuous gravity to capture the probe into orbit.

"The team continued our long string of successes by executing the orbit-insertion maneuver perfectly," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "With the navigation campaign coming to an end, we are looking forward to the scientific mapping and sample site selection phase of the mission."

Спойлер

Launched in September 2016, NASA's $1 billion Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer was built to travel to Bennu and collect samples for return to Earth.

When the solar system formed more than 4.5 billion years ago, chunks of rock and ice collided as they circled the sun like the balls on a billiard table, eventually building up planets. The leftovers became asteroids and comets, and scientists believe Bennu still harbors the basic carbon-bearing organic molecules that were present in the early solar solar system, the stuff that may have helped seed life.

Bennu is in an orbit around the sun that crosses Earth's orbit, making it a potentially hazardous asteroid that could eventually pose an impact threat with our planet.

The spacecraft carries three cameras — one for long-range viewing, a color camera for mapping, and another imager to take pictures as OSIRIS-REx collects samples from the asteroid's surface. The rest of OSIRIS-REx's suite of science instruments includes a thermal emission spectrometer to detect heat coming from the asteroid, a visible infrared spectrometer to locate minerals and organic materials, a laser altimeter provided by the Canadian Space Agency to create topographic maps, and a student-built X-ray spectrometer to identify individual chemical elements present on the asteroid.

Besides revealing Bennu with high-resolution images, OSIRIS-REx has already made discoveries at the asteroid.

Data gathered by thermal emission and visible infrared spectrometer instruments — OTES and OVIRS — indicates clay minerals on the asteroid's surface contain hydroxyl molecules with oxygen and hydrogen molecules bonded together. This finding suggests Bennu's surface was once in contact with water, likely when the asteroid was part of a much larger parent body that was smashed to bits in a collision in the chaotic early solar system.


An artist's concept of OSIRIS-REx at Bennu. Credit: Lockheed Martin

"The presence of hydrated minerals across the asteroid confirms that Bennu, a remnant from early in the formation of the solar system, is an excellent specimen for the OSIRIS-REx mission to study the composition of primitive volatiles and organics," said Amy Simon, OVIRS deputy instrument scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "When samples of this material are returned by the mission to Earth in 2023, scientists will receive a treasure trove of new information about the history and evolution of our solar system."

"Our initial data show that the team picked the right asteroid as the target of the OSIRIS-REx mission. We have not discovered any insurmountable issues at Bennu so far," said Lauretta said. "The spacecraft is healthy and the science instruments are working better than required. It is time now for our adventure to begin."

The first high-resolution images of Bennu taken by OSIRIS-REx revealed a miniature world containing a few relatively smooth regions without many large rocks, interspersed with boulder-filled regions that might be treacherous for the spacecraft's sample collection touch-and-go maneuver.

One prominent feature of Bennu's landscape is a large boulder protruding from the surface near the south pole. While ground-based radar images suggested the boulder to be at least 33 feet, or 10 meters, in height, OSIRIS-REx imagery indicates is closer to 164 feet, or 50 meters, tall with a width of approximately 180 feet, or 55 meters, according to NASA.

On approach to Bennu, ground controllers at Lockheed Martin in Denver — wh ere OSIRIS-REx was built — unlatched the probe's robotic arm from its launch restraint for the first time. Over several days, the ground team commanded the arm to bend its joints and jettison a launch cover over the sample collection mechanism, which will release compressed air during a touch-and-go maneuver to force gravel and surface material into an on-board chamber for the journey back to Earth.


This mosaic compares the size of asteroid Bennu, to scale, with other asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft. Credit: NASA/University of Arizona/ESA/JAXA

Due to the asteroid's weak gravity, OSIRIS-REx was predicted to move around Bennu at a speed of just one-tenth of a mile per hour, or about 5 centimeters per second, once in orbit. The spacecraft's first orbital phase will last until mid-February, when OSIRIS-REx will again make a series of flybys of Bennu.

During the mission's first orbital phase, OSIRIS-REx is orbiting the asteroid at a range of 0.9 miles (1.4 km) to 1.24 miles (2.0 km) from the center of Bennu, setting another record for the closest distance any spacecraft has orbited to a planetary body.

Orbital speeds are determined by the gravitational pull of the parent planet or star. For comparison, objects in low Earth orbit have to travel at around 17,500 mph (7.8 kilometers per second) to avoid falling back into the atmosphere.

"It's Bennu's size and small mass that make the navigation challenges on this mission unprecedented, really," said Michael Moreau, OSIRIS-REx flight dynamics system manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a conference call with reporters in August.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which was orbited by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft from 2014 through 2016, is between five and 10 times larger than Bennu, depending on how you measure. Asteroid Ryugu, wh ere Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is currently exploring, is nearly twice the size of Bennu, and Hayabusa 2 will not enter orbit around it.

"Entering orbit around Bennu is an amazing accomplishment that our team has been planning for years," Lauretta said.

OSIRIS-REx will orbit and explore Bennu for more than a year, allowing scientists and mission planners to examine the asteroid and determine a safe location for the craft's touch-and-go descent in July 2020 to snag samples from the asteroid. The spacecraft will depart Bennu and head back to Earth, releasing its sample carrier for re-entry and landing in Utah in September 2023.

Scientists will take the samples to an ultra-clean facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for detailed analysis.

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https://ria.ru/20190101/1548963642.html

На орбиту астероида Бенну вышел спутник
03:06

МОСКВА, 1 янв - РИА Новости. Космический зонд НАСА OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security — Regolith Explorer) вышел на орбиту вокруг астероида Бенну, образцы породы которого ему предстоит собрать.

Зонд OSIRIS-REx был запущен в сентябре 2016 года. Его целью исследователи выбрали астероид Бенну, ранее известный под номером 1999 RQ36. Аппарат достиг своей рабочей позиции на расстоянии 20 километров от 500-метрового астероида 3 декабря.

"Это официально! Я на орбите астероида Бенну – самого маленького небесного тела, вокруг которого когда-либо вращался космический аппарат", - говорится в аккаунте миссии в Twitter.

В рамках первичного исследования астероида аппарат совершил несколько пролетов на расстоянии семи километров от Бенну. Зонд собирал информацию о массе и движении астероида. В рамках орбитального этапа изучения Бенну, он будет совершать виток вокруг астероида за 50 часов и приближаться к космическому телу на расстояние до 1,4 километра. На последующих этапах изучения аппарат будет собирать информацию для определения места забора грунта астероида.

Операция по забору частиц грунта с астероида намечена на середину 2020 года. По замыслу разработчиков, зонд на пять секунд опустит на поверхность Бенну трехметровую выдвижную "руку" TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism), которая втянет в специальную капсулу частицы материала с поверхности космического тела. Создатели рассчитывают, что с поверхности с помощью сжатого газа удастся добыть по крайней мере около 60 граммов пород, которые будут доставлены на Землю в 2023 году.

Выбранный в качестве объекта изучения для OSIRIS-REx астероид был назван в честь птицы Бенну – символа воскресения древнеегипетского божества Осириса. Космическое тело размером 500 метров было открыто учеными из проекта LINEAR Массачусетского технологического института, и, по расчетам специалистов, сблизится с Землей в 2182 году. В 2013 году сообщалось, что Бенну стал главным потенциально опасным объектом для нашей планеты после "отмены" угрозы астероид Апофис и ряда других астероидов.

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Emily Lakdawalla‏ @elakdawalla 1 ч. назад

ICYMI yesterday, OSIRIS-REx has arrived in orbit at Bennu, and team member Olivier Barnouin shared a wealth of early science results during a panel discussion yesterday. http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/news-brief-osiris-rex-orbit.html ...

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https://www.asteroidmission.org/galleries/spacecraft-imagery/preliminarysurveynavcam-2/#main

Preliminary Survey of Bennu

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu on Dec. 3, 2018. During the month of December, the spacecraft preformed a preliminary survey of Bennu, conducting three flyovers of the asteroid's north pole and one each of its equator and south pole. The data gathered during these flybys allowed the mission team to more precisely estimate Bennu's mass so that the spacecraft could go into go into orbit around the asteroid on Dec. 31.

This series of images was captured by NavCam 1, a black-and-white imager that is one of three cameras comprising TAGCAMS (the Touch-and-Go Camera System), which is part of OSIRIS-REx's guidance, navigation, and control system. TAGCAMS was designed, built and tested by Malin Space Science Systems; Lockheed Martin Space integrated TAGCAMS to the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and operates TAGCAMS.

Date Taken: Nov. 30 - Dec. 31, 2018

Instrument Used: TAGCAMS (NavCam 1)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin Space

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 1 ч. назад

Here's the path I flew during Preliminary Survey: three passes over Bennu's north pole, one flyby of the equator, and one pass under the asteroid's south pole. Then, I drifted away from Bennu as planned before coming back in for orbital insertion: http://bit.ly/BennuOrbit 

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https://www.asteroidmission.org/navcam-earth-moon-bennu-dec19/

NavCam Image of Earth, the Moon, and Bennu

On Dec. 19, OSIRIS-REx used its NavCam 1 camera to capture this image of three familiar planetary bodies: asteroid Bennu, Earth, and the moon. Despite the spacecraft's distance from home – about 71 million miles (114 million kilometers) – Earth and the Moon are visible in the lower left due to the long exposure time used for this image (five seconds). The spacecraft's range to Bennu is only about 27 miles (43 kilometers), so the asteroid appears highly overexposed in the upper right. The head of the constellation Hydra is also visible in the lower right portion of the image.

NavCam 1 is a black-and-white imager that is one of three cameras comprising TAGCAMS (the Touch-and-Go Camera System), which is part of OSIRIS-REx's guidance, navigation, and control system. TAGCAMS was designed, built and tested by Malin Space Science Systems; Lockheed Martin Space integrated TAGCAMS to the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and operates TAGCAMS.

Date Taken: Dec. 19, 2018

Instrument Used: TAGCAMS (NavCam 1)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin Space

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 47 мин. назад

I've been in orbit around Bennu for about seven days now. As I orbit the asteroid, Bennu also continues its orbit around the Sun. We -- Bennu and I -- are currently about 103 million kilometers (64 million miles) from Earth.

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 1 ч. назад

Since launching in 2016, I have traveled nearly 2.2 billion kilometers (1.3 billion miles) around the Solar System and am now in orbit around #asteroid Bennu.
Check out the Mission Status Update page to follow along on my journey: http://bit.ly/ORExMSU 

https://www.asteroidmission.org/?mission_update=jan-14-2019

Jan 14, 2019

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft continues to orbit Bennu at an altitude ranging fr om 1.6 to 2.1 km, with an orbital period of 61 hours. The spacecraft has completed 5.5 orbits of Bennu to date. The one-way communication time from the spacecraft back to Earth is around 5.5 minutes.

On the ground, the mission held its 14th Science Team Meeting at the University of Arizona last week. This was the first science team meeting since the spacecraft's arrival at the asteroid, which means it was also the first gathering wh ere the entire science team was able to work with detailed Bennu data from the spacecraft.

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 57 мин. назад

In my current orbit around Bennu, I pass as close as 1.6 km (just under one mile) from the asteroid's center. To maintain these close quarters, my navigation team is building on lessons learned from other small body missions – and taking them to the next level of precision.

[tnt22]

NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 8:54 - 15 янв. 2019 г.

How close am I to Bennu? During Orbital A, I'm flying much closer to the asteroid's surface than the altitude of a typical commercial airliner flying over Earth's surface. During Orbital B, which begins this summer, I'll get even closer to the asteroid: http://bit.ly/AsteroidOps 




10:04 - 15 янв. 2019 г.

Zooming in further... I'm flying closer to Bennu's surface than many small aircraft, helicopters, and even some birds fly over Earth's surface. My altitude is also lower than the highest point of Mount Kilimanjaro.

[tnt22]

NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 46 мин. назад

Mapping an asteroid requires views from all directions. During Preliminary Survey, I used MapCam to snap this image of Bennu from a distance of about 8 miles (13 km) as I flew toward the asteroid during a pass over its equator. http://bit.ly/2QT8Rlp 

https://www.asteroidmission.org/mapcam-ps-equator-flyby/

Bennu Equatorial Flyby

This image was captured by OSIRIS-REx's MapCam imager on December 12, 2018 as the spacecraft flew over Bennu's equatorial region during the mission's Preliminary Survey of the asteroid. The image was taken from a distance of about 8 miles (13 km) while the spacecraft was traveling toward the asteroid.

Date Taken: Dec. 12, 2018

Instrument Used: OCAMS (MapCam)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

[tnt22]

NASA's OSIRIS-REx‏Подлинная учетная запись @OSIRISREx 4 ч. назад

A view from the southern hemisphere... I captured this shot of Bennu with my MapCam imager as I flew past the asteroid's south pole during Preliminary Survey. More image details: http://bit.ly/BennuSPole 

https://www.asteroidmission.org/mapcam-south-pole-flyby-20181217t061345/

MapCam South Pole Flyby

This image was captured by OSIRIS-REx's MapCam imager on Dec. 17, 2018 as the spacecraft flew under Bennu's south pole during the mission's Preliminary Survey of the asteroid. The image has an exposure time of 9.3 milliseconds and was taken from a distance of about 10 miles (16 km) while the spacecraft was traveling away from the asteroid.

Date Taken: Dec. 17, 2018

Instrument Used: OCAMS (MapCam)

Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona