OSIRIS REx: Traveling... HEAVY. Literally OVERLOADED, With Early Solar System / Star Stuff...

This is jaw-droppingly, excitingly good news -- a happy problem to have. We are apparently towing extra rocks -- about ten times as much as we had hoped / planned for!

As seen at right, NASA is quickly stowing the sample scooper and container, from Wednesday's exploits -- for return to Earth in 2023, because the arm's container / capsule is so full of dust, rocks and regolith that the door is slightly wedged open by a small rock, and is gently leaking a plume of material into the cold black space, some 200 million miles away from Earth, and now thousands of miles away from Bennu. . . so we need to get it tucked away, in the belly of the craft -- ASAP. Here's the overnight story, out of NASA -- and a bit:

. . .From here, the OSIRIS-Rex team will focus on stowing the sample in the Sample Return Capsule (SRC), where any loose material will be kept safe during the spacecraft’s journey back to Earth.

“We are working to keep up with our own success here, and my job is to safely return as large a sample of Bennu as possible,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. “The loss of mass is of concern to me, so I’m strongly encouraging the team to stow this precious sample as quickly as possible.”

The TAGSAM head performed the sampling event in optimal conditions. Newly available analyses show that the collector head was flush with Bennu’s surface when it made contact and when the nitrogen gas bottle was fired to stir surface material. It also penetrated several centimeters into the asteroid’s surface material. All data so far suggest that the collector head is holding much more than 2 ounces of regolith.

OSIRIS-REx remains in good health, and the mission team is finalizing a timeline for sample storage. An update will be provided once a decision is made on the sample storage timing and procedures. . . .

Grinning ear to ear, here -- on a cool sun-dappled late fall morning. . . do stream Clara. You will not regret it.

नमस्ते