Washington (AFP)

The US probe Osiris-Rex will begin a multi-day operation on Tuesday to store the asteroid fragments it picked up last week in an airtight capsule, but which are escaping into space due to an evil valve closed.

NASA confirmed Monday that the procedure would begin the next day: soil samples from the asteroid Bennu are currently at the end of the probe's more than three-meter-long arm, in a compartment from which they overflow, and which does not fail to close because of relatively large stones.

It is this arm that was in contact with Bennu for a few seconds last Tuesday, the culmination of a mission launched from Earth four years earlier.

But concern had given way to initial euphoria at NASA on Friday after the probe sent images showing several grams of particles floating around the arm, confirming a leak.

The urgency is to secure the cargo as quickly as possible, and the team therefore decided to bring storage forward to Tuesday, instead of November 2.

“The abundance of material collected on Bennu justifies our decision to move storage forward,” said Dante Lauretta, of the University of Arizona and project leader.

The procedure will take several days, according to NASA, because it will not be fully automated like the previous operations.

After each step, the probe will send information and images back to Earth for scientists to verify that the arm is aligned and that no particles are likely to block the storage.

However, the probe is 18.5 light minutes away: any signal takes 18 and a half minutes to arrive on Earth, and any signal from the control room needs the same time to reach Osiris-Rex.

The slightest dialogue therefore lasts 37 minutes.

© 2020 AFP