{"id":172263,"date":"2023-09-18T11:24:16","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T16:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/a-billion-mile-journey-osiris-rexs-meteoric-return-with-a-space-rock-treasure"},"modified":"2023-09-18T11:24:16","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T16:24:16","slug":"a-billion-mile-journey-osiris-rexs-meteoric-return-with-a-space-rock-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/a-billion-mile-journey-osiris-rexs-meteoric-return-with-a-space-rock-treasure","title":{"rendered":"A Billion-Mile Journey: OSIRIS-REx\u2019s Meteoric Return With a Space Rock Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-billion-mile-journey-osiris-rexs-meteoric-return-with-a-space-rock-treasure.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Recovery teams participate in field rehearsals in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx mission at the Department of Defense\u2019s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and will return to Earth on September 24th, landing under parachute at the Utah Test and Training Range. Credit: NASA\/Keegan Barber.<\/p>\n<p>The OSIRIS-REx team also thought a lot about conditions on the ground itself. Late summer is monsoon season in the desert, so heavy rains could saturate the silty ground. Wet-cement-like mud would make driving difficult if off-road vehicles are required to help helicopters find and transport the capsule.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should know by the end of monsoon season how much precipitation we\u2019ve received and the condition of the salt flats,\u201d said Eric Nelson, a U.S. Army meteorologist supporting the mission. \u201cA good indicator is Bonneville Speed Week, an annual racing event in August.\u201d Since it went off without a hitch, \u201cwe\u2019re probably okay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recovery teams participate in field rehearsals in preparation for the retrieval of the sample return capsule from NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx mission at the Department of Defense\u2019s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and will return to Earth on September 24th, landing under [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}