The OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule lying near its parachute shortly after touching down in the Utah desert. (Photo: Keegan Barber/NASA)
Dante Lauretta (right), UArizona Regents Professor and OSIRIS-REx principal investigator, collects science data with NASA Astromaterials Curator Francis McCubbin and NASA Sample Return Capsule Science Lead Scott Sandford shortly after the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission landed at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range on Sunday, Sept. 24. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020. (Photo: Keegan Barber/NASA)
The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. (Photo: Keegan Barber/NASA)
A helicopter returns with the capsule carrying pieces of rocks and dust collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. The capsule landed early in the morning of Sept. 24, 2023, and teams were deployed to take environmental measurements to rule out Earthly contamination before helicopters flew the sample back to a clean room. (Photo: Chris Richards/University of Arizona)
A crowd, including University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins, cheers as the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule touches down. (Photo: Chris Richards/University Communications)
From left to right, Lockheed Martin Mission Operations Assurance Lead Graham Miller, Lockheed Martin Recovery Specialist Michael Kaye, and Lockheed Martin Recovery Specialist Levi Hanish, prepare the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission for transport, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. (Photo: Keegan Barber/NASA)
On Scene Commander of Recovery Jasmine Nakayama attaches the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to a helicopter for transport to the cleanroom, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. (Photo: Keegan Barber/NASA)
On Scene Commander of Recovery Jasmine Nakayama attaches the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to a helicopter for transport to the cleanroom, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, shortly after the capsule landed at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. (Photo: Keegan Barber/NASA)
Lauretta victoriously returns from the field where he and other scientists sampled the immediate environment around the sample return capsule before towing it away by helicopter. (Photo: Chris Richards/University Communications)
Principal investigator for NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission and University of Arizona Regents Professor of Planetary Sciences Dante Lauretta speaking to reporters after successfully returning with the team that recovered the sample return capsule from the Utah desert. This mission was decades in the making. The spacecraft traveled for seven years and over 4 billion miles before returning home. (Photo: Chris Richards/University Communications)
OSIRIS-REx mission principal investigator and University of Arizona Regents Professor of Planetary Sciences Dante Lauretta speaks with mission team members, including the mission's implementation systems engineer Anjani Polit from the University of Arizona. (Photo: Chris Richards/University Communications)
Principal investigator for NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission and University of Arizona Regents Professor of Planetary Sciences Dante Lauretta shakes hands with University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins. (Photo: Chris Richards/University Communications)
After a seven-year journey covering 4 billion miles, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew past Earth on Sunday to deliver its bounty – an estimated 8.8 ounces, or 250 grams, of rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu.
The capsule with the asteroid sample touched down right on time – just before 8 a.m. Tucson time – in the Utah desert, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at UArizona, was among the first people to approach the sample return capsule after it landed.
"It was like seeing an old friend that you hadn't seen for a long time," Lauretta said during a post-landing press conference hosted by NASA at the range. "I did want to give it a hug."
After determining the capsule was safe to approach, scientists bagged it and transported it via a cable below a helicopter to a nearby clean room. The canister inside the capsule, which holds the sample, underwent a "nitrogen purge" to keep out earthly contaminants and keep the sample pure for scientific analyses.
The canister is now en route to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where curation scientists will disassemble it, extract and weigh the sample, create an inventory of the rocks and dust, and, over time, distribute pieces of Bennu to scientists worldwide.
The Bennu sample will help scientists make discoveries to better understand planet formation and the origin of organics and water that led to life on Earth, as well as benefit all of humanity by learning more about potentially hazardous asteroids.
The delivery marked the end of the space-voyaging phase of the mission, which launched on Sept. 8, 2016. Key milestones along the way included the spacecraft's arrival at Bennu on Dec. 3, 2018, the search for a safe sample-collection site in 2019 and 2020, sample collection on Oct. 20, 2020, and the return trip home starting on May 10, 2021.
Once the spacecraft jettisoned the capsule at 3:42 a.m. Tucson time on Sunday, it officially began its extended mission, OSIRIS-APEX, to study and map another potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid, called Apophis. Planetary sciences assistant professor and OSIRIS-REx deputy principal investigator Dani DellaGiustina will serve as principal investigator for OSIRIS-APEX.
See key moments from Sunday's sample return in the gallery above, featuring photos from UArizona photographer Chris Richards and NASA photographer Keegan Barber.