The last meeting of OSIRIS-REx and asteroid Bennu will take place on April 7

In less than a week, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will make its final flyby of the asteroid Bennu to

take pictures of its surface. During the flyby, the spacecraft will observe Bennu from a distance of 3.7 km. There has not been such an approach to the asteroid since samples were collected on October 20, 2020.

Then the automatic station OSIRIS-REx,launched in 2016, successfully completed its main task: it came into contact with the named space object and captured soil particles. The procedure was performed using a TAGSAM (Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) manipulator with a length of 3.35 meters.

The researchers targeted at least 60gram of rocks. In case of insufficient mass of samples, scientists planned to repeat the procedure of touching the asteroid in the first half of January. However, this was not required. The probe managed to collect a lot of samples, but some of them were lost.

The artist's concept shows the plannedthe flight path of NASA's OSIRIS-REx during its last flyby over asteroid Bennu, which is scheduled for April 7. Photo: NASA / Goddard / University of Arizona

On April 7, OSIRIS-REx will be filming Bennu during5.9 hours. This is slightly more than the full rotation period of the asteroid. During this time, the spacecraft's thermal imager, the PolyCam, will acquire high-resolution images of Bennu's northern and southern hemispheres and its equatorial region. The team will then compare these new images with previous images of the asteroid taken in 2019.

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