APOD: 2020 November 3 - Tagging Bennu: The Movie

Good morning, Rallypoint. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is titled "Tagging Bennu: The Movie." On Oct. 20, 2020, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spacecraft successfully descended to the surface of asteroid Bennu and collected a sample of material according to a planned Touch-and-Go (TAG) maneuver. This 47-second video clip shows you how things went. Two days later, the mission team received images from OSIRIS-REx confirming the spacecraft had collected more than 2 ounces of surface material from Bennu.

The sample was successfully stored in the Sample Return Capsule (SRC) for the spacecraft’s journey back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to depart Bennu in March 2021 and arrive back at Earth to drop off the sample on Sept. 24, 2023.