MONTREAL — Seven years after it blasted into space to snag a sample of an asteroid, a spacecraft is set to deliver its rare cargo on Sunday — and Canada is getting a piece of the interstellar bounty.
The NASA-led mission launched OSIRIS-REx into space in 2016 to collect from the surface of an asteroid material that scientists hope will offer them insight into the formation of the solar system. The spacecraft began orbiting the asteroid — called Bennu — in 2018 and grabbed a sample in 2020.
By taking billions of measurements of the asteroid over two years, Canada's altimeter — known as OLA — helped scientists select the best location on the asteroid from which to gather a sample. The craft then briefly landed on the asteroid to collect the material. "In exchange for this contribution, Canadian scientists have been on the OSIRIS REx science team from the very beginning," John Moores, science adviser to the president of the Canadian Space Agency, told a recent briefing on the mission.Tim Haltigin, planetary senior mission scientist with The Canadian Space Agency, has worked on the project for a decade.
"There was only about a handful that were made of some of the most interesting scientific materials that allow us to answer some of these fundamental questions about the origins of the solar system," Haltigin said.
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