NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold
NASA doesn’t have the right screwdriver to open the box containing the fragments of the asteroid Bennu
SPACE – Imagine the frustration: a container of asteroid dust is in your hands, after a journey of 200 million kilometers in space, an incredible recovery maneuver to bring the valuable alien rocks on board, a return to Earth that was too dangerous But it’s successful… And you don’t have the right screwdriver to open it. Here’s what just happened (slightly exaggerated) to the American Space Agency.
On October 20, NASA published an update on the operation to open the Osiris-Rex probe’s valuable cargo on its blog. The machine, launched in 2016, collected parts of the asteroid Bennu using a telescopic arm. On October 21, 2020, the probe touched the bottom of the asteroid for almost 6 seconds and tore off some fragments. An extraordinary success.
Since its return to Earth at the end of September 2023, the probe has already surprised experts: a small dose of space dust was also visible outside the container. Recovered and viewed under the microscope, it initially showed what astronomers had calculated from Earth: Bennu consists partly of water and carbon, essential pieces of the puzzle of how life emerged here on Earth.
Wrong tools in the glove compartment
But the piece of resistance is still to come. Inside the container is the majority of Osiris-Rex’s catch, the 250 grams still isolated from the world by a box. But there is a small hiccup here. The box in question, called TAGSAM, is so well sealed and the precautions taken to reopen it are so great that it remains locked for now.
“After several attempts, the team determined that two of the thirty-five screws used on TAGSAM could not be removed using the tools in the glove compartment of Osiris-Rex,” NASA admitted. But what is this “glove compartment”? This is a larger container filled with nitrogen into which the stem box was transferred. A kind of aquarium, completely airtight, which is intended to prevent the fragments from being contaminated by the earth’s atmosphere during recovery.
NASA
The famous airtight glove compartment.
In summary, NASA didn’t put in that “glove box” the adjustable wrench needed to settle the score with two wayward screws… That sort of thing is annoying after such an ambitious space adventure! Fortunately, this setback does not dampen the good mood of the American space agency, which, despite a certain impatience, expects to quickly find the right tool.
NASA therefore explains that it still recovered some of it “by pushing pliers into the already opened area of the lid”, a bit like trying to extract the contents of a poorly opened can. The little spoon. It’s time for new, more efficient screwdrivers in the glove compartment.
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