OSIRIS-REx Is Coming Home
The U.S. Postal Service will commemorate NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and the samples of the asteroid Bennu that it will deliver to Earth in September 2023. The first-day-of-issue event for this Forever stamp is free and open to the public. News of the stamp is being shared with the hashtag #OSIRISRExStamp.
This new 20-stamp pane from the U.S. Postal Service celebrates NASA's seven-year OSIRIS-REx mission to study and map the asteroid Bennu and return a sample of the surface to Earth in September 2023. This is the first pristine sample of an asteroid collected by the United States, and it will help scientists learn how our solar system formed.
The stamp artwork shows the capsule containing the sample parachuting to the Utah Test and Training Range, a U.S. Department of Defense facility in the desert. A depiction of Bennu's surface appears at the bottom of the pane's selvage with outer space above — deep blue and dappled with celestial bodies. A view of the asteroid is in the upper right corner.
OSIRIS-REx left Earth aboard a rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, FL, on Sept. 8, 2016, then orbited the sun for a year before passing close to Earth for a gravity assist. The spacecraft arrived in the asteroid's vicinity in December 2018 and got to work. With its special cameras and spectrometers, it began photographing and mapping Bennu's surface to determine the best site from which to collect samples.
OSIRIS-REx launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an Atlas V 411 rocket on Sept. 8, 2016. In September 2017, OSIRIS-REx used Earth’s gravitational field to assist it on its way to Bennu.
OSIRIS-REx was designed to map out potential sample sites and then retrieve. The sampling arm would make contact with the surface of Bennu for about five seconds, during which it would release a burst of nitrogen gas. The procedure would cause rocks and surface material to be stirred up and captured in the sampler head. The spacecraft would have enough nitrogen to allow three sampling attempts, to collect between 60 and 2000 grams (2–70 ounces).
The time for the rendezvous arrived in October 2020. To carry out its task, the spacecraft did not actually land on the asteroid but instead slowly descended toward the surface and extended a robotic arm. A collection device at the hand-end of the arm then released a sudden puff of nitrogen gas that sent up a cloud of dust and rocks from Bennu's surface. More than 2 ounces of these materials were captured in a special container in the collection device, which then closed and retracted into the spacecraft.
On May 10, 2021, OSIRIS-REx began its flight back toward Earth. Its container of asteroid dust and rocks, enclosed in a special capsule, will parachute to the Utah desert on Sept. 24, 2023.
The sample return capsule will separate from the spacecraft and enter the Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule containing the sample will be collected at the Utah Test and Training Range. For two years after the sample return (from late 2023-2025) the science team will catalog the sample and conduct the analysis needed to meet the mission science goals. NASA will preserve at least 75% of the sample at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston for further research by scientists worldwide, including future generations of scientists.
The stamp was illustrated by Alan Dingma, basing his work on images supplied by NASA. Antonio Alcalá, an art director for USPS, designed the stamp and pane.
The OSIRIS-REx stamp is being issued as a Forever stamp, which will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce rate.
Postal Products: Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through the Postal Store at usps.com/shopstamps, by calling 844-737-7826, by mail through USA Philatelic or at select Post Office locations nationwide. For officially licensed stamp products, shop the USPS Officially Licensed Collection on Amazon.
SOURCE: U.S. Postal Service
