NASA's Osiris-Rex probe makes contact with the asteroid Bennu

• 'Touch and go': the complex maneuver with which the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft tries to collect dust from the asteroid Bennu

• OSIRIS-REx The spacecraft arrives at the asteroid Bennu to collect samples and bring them to Earth

The US probe Osiris-Rex briefly contacted the

on Tuesday

, as planned,

confirmed

, although the success of the sampling operation will not be known for a few days.

"Landing confirmed" ... "Sampling completed"

, announced the space agency during the live broadcast of the operations, starting a standing ovation among the team at the end of this operation of a few seconds, which comes more than

of the probe.

"Everything went perfectly", explained minutes later the head of the mission,

, taken by emotion.

"We wrote a page of history this afternoon," he added.

After squirting compressed nitrogen onto Bennu's surface, the probe arm was supposed to

kicked up by the impulse.

The goal was to

during those few seconds, which would be the largest extraterrestrial sample collected since the Apollo lunar missions.

But the exact mass of the sample will not be known until Saturday.

So far, Osiris-Rex has only been able to send confirmation messages, but no images: the probe will barely be able to do so on the night of Tuesday through Wednesday, as soon as it returns to its orbit and is at a safe distance from the asteroid, after charging the batteries. .

In the next hours and days, you

that will give an estimate of the result of the sampling.

There is a possibility that the probe arm has not been able to rest on a flat surface and suck up the dust, for example if it has fallen on a large rock.

In case of failure,

, at another point, in January.

In March 2021, Osiris-Rex will begin its long journey back to Earth.

It is scheduled to drop the container carrying the samples with a landing in the

(southwestern United States), slowed down by a parachute, on September 24, 2023.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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