An animation of a cube-shaped spacecraft with two rectangular wing-like solar panels passing in front of the sun.OSIRIS-APEX emerged “unscathed” from its closest-ever brush past our sun on Jan. 2, scientists announced on Tuesday (May 28).The probe, originally known as OSIRIS-REx, aced its sample-return mission to the asteroid Bennu and is now headed to the space rock Apophis on an extended mission. That new mission calls for OSIRIS-APEX to glide 25 million miles (40 million kilometers) closer to the sun than it was designed to operate. Scientists deem several such close passes necessary for the probe to get on a path to reach Apophis in 2029.OSIRIS-APEX is in an elliptical orbit around our sun, which puts it at a point closest to the star once every nine months. Its first such close approach occurred on Jan. 2. To prepare for the intense blast of radiation, in early December the mission team tucked in one of OSIRIS-APEX’s two solar panels such that it shaded the probe’s most sensitive instruments, while the second panel faced the sun in order to power the spacecraft.Related: How NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will help protect Earth against asteroid Bennu and its flyby in 2182 side-by-side identical images, showing a closeup look at a shiny silver spacecraft in spaceThis bit of creative engineering protected the spacecraft during its dangerously close approach to the sun, just like computer simulations had previously predicted, the mission team shared this week in a NASA statement.”It’s phenomenal how well our spacecraft configuration protected OSIRIS-APEX, so I’m really encouraged by this first close perihelion pass,” said Ron Mink, the mission systems engineer for OSIRIS-APEX at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.Telemetry data downloaded from the spacecraft in mid-March assured scientists of its good health. By early April, the probe had gotten far enough away from the sun to resume normal operations, according to the NASA statement.Scientists and engineers were also pleasantly surprised to note that an onboard camera fared even better than expected after being exposed to high temperatures during the enco …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nn An animation of a cube-shaped spacecraft with two rectangular wing-like solar panels passing in front of the sun.OSIRIS-APEX emerged “unscathed” from its closest-ever brush past our sun on Jan. 2, scientists announced on Tuesday (May 28).The probe, originally known as OSIRIS-REx, aced its sample-return mission to the asteroid Bennu and is now headed to the space rock Apophis on an extended mission. That new mission calls for OSIRIS-APEX to glide 25 million miles (40 million kilometers) closer to the sun than it was designed to operate. Scientists deem several such close passes necessary for the probe to get on a path to reach Apophis in 2029.OSIRIS-APEX is in an elliptical orbit around our sun, which puts it at a point closest to the star once every nine months. Its first such close approach occurred on Jan. 2. To prepare for the intense blast of radiation, in early December the mission team tucked in one of OSIRIS-APEX’s two solar panels such that it shaded the probe’s most sensitive instruments, while the second panel faced the sun in order to power the spacecraft.Related: How NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will help protect Earth against asteroid Bennu and its flyby in 2182 side-by-side identical images, showing a closeup look at a shiny silver spacecraft in spaceThis bit of creative engineering protected the spacecraft during its dangerously close approach to the sun, just like computer simulations had previously predicted, the mission team shared this week in a NASA statement.”It’s phenomenal how well our spacecraft configuration protected OSIRIS-APEX, so I’m really encouraged by this first close perihelion pass,” said Ron Mink, the mission systems engineer for OSIRIS-APEX at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.Telemetry data downloaded from the spacecraft in mid-March assured scientists of its good health. By early April, the probe had gotten far enough away from the sun to resume normal operations, according to the NASA statement.Scientists and engineers were also pleasantly surprised to note that an onboard camera fared even better than expected after being exposed to high temperatures during the enco …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
