A water-world asteroid
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft traveled over a billion miles to reach Bennu, an asteroid that sits between Earth and Mars and is billions of years old.
The mission brought back a sample that scientists have been studying to see what the asteroid is made of, and if Bennu could answer questions about how life began on our planet. A surprising find of phosphate is bringing scientists closer to that understanding.
Dante Lauretta, the leader of NASA's OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission and Regents Professor of Planetary Science in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, said the phosphate discovery he made was shocking.
“This one particle shone out as really bright and white,” Lauretta said. “We got it in the electron microscope, and it was a phosphate. That was completely unexpected.”
Phosphate is a building block for life to thrive on our own planet. Lauretta said Bennu’s origin is a mystery, but this discovery has led him and his team to believe Bennu came from deep in the outer solar system.
“It probably migrated to the asteroid belt where it was shattered and then delivered into the near-Earth population,” Lauretta said. “So, it's been wandering around for billions of years.”
Spacesuits and Starliner
The International Space Station needs new spacesuits. Two commercial companies signed on to develop new suits – both for the ISS and for missions to the moon. But one of those contractors has backed out.
Eric Berger has been covering that story as well as other stories on the space beat. He’s the senior space editor at Ars Technica.
Berger said NASA contracted with two commercial companies, Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace, to make the new spacesuits. However, Collins Aerospace backed out.
“Axiom was delegated to building the spacesuit to walk on the moon, and Collins aerospace was tasked with building the spacesuit to operate outside the International Space Station, basically, in space flight activities,” Berger said. “The snag is that Collins aerospace held a meeting of its employees about 10 days ago now and said ‘well, we can't compete on this and we're ending our participation as a specialty contractor.’ So, NASA went from having two private companies building spacesuits to now just one.”
NASA had plans to complete three spacewalks this summer, but now only has plans to complete one. Berger said he believes it is not due to the aging equipment.
“My understanding is these issues primarily are not due to the aging spacesuits but rather perhaps a preparation issue prior to the spacewalk,” Berger said. “NASA hasn't really been clear about that, so it's hard to really parse that, but I don't think you can get around the fact that the current suits are aging and enlarged and a bit clunky and difficult.”
More news from the International Space Station: The return of Boeing’s Starliner space capsule carrying two astronauts has been delayed. Boeing is investigating issues with the spacecraft’s thrusters, but said the crew is safe to return anytime.
“I think they're taking this time to just make sure they really understand this problem,” Berger said. “Because let's face it, if they were to undock from the space station and then the thruster problem occurred again only it was worse, they would really be in trouble. The crew would have difficulty getting back to the space station. There might be some problem with reentry; that seems like a very low likelihood probability. But I think NASA wants to make sure that's a probability of zero."
