After a four-year journey, NASA's robotic spacecraft OSIRIS-REx briefly touched down on asteroid Bennu's boulder-strewn surface on Tuesday to collect rock and dust samples in a precision operation 200 million miles (330 million kilometers) from Earth.
The so-called "Touch-And-Go" or TAG maneuver was managed by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado, where at 6:12 pm (2212 GMT) an announcer said: "Touchdown declared. Sampling is in progress," and scientists erupted in celebration.
The historic mission was 12 years in the making and rested on a critical 16 second period where the spacecraft performed a delicate autonomous maneuver to grab its precious payload: at least 60 grams (two ounces), or a candy-bar sized amount of regolith that scientists hope will help unravel the origins of our solar system.
If OSIRIS-REx successfully comes home in September 2023, it will have collected the largest sample returned from space since the Apollo era.
"We think we actually might be coming back with a baby picture of what the solar system was like, of what our chemistry was like, billions of years ago," NASA scientist Michelle Thaller said.
"We're looking for our own origins out there, and that's why we've gone so far to bring a bit of Bennu back."
