NASA Finally Unlocks Stuck Fasteners on Asteroid Sample Capsule (space.com) 37
"For months, bits of an asteroid collected by a U.S. probe during a billion-mile trek were out of reach to scientists," reports Space.com, "locked inside a return capsule in a NASA facility with two stuck fasteners preventing access to the rocky space treasure.
"This week, NASA won its battle against those fasteners."
More details from CNN: The space agency already harvested about 2.5 ounces (70 grams) of rocks and dust from its OSIRIS-REx mission, which traveled nearly 4 billion miles to collect the unprecedented sample from the near-Earth asteroid called Bennu. But NASA revealed in October that some material remained out of reach in a capsule hidden inside an instrument called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism — a robotic arm with a storage container at one end that collected the sample from Bennu. The sampler head is held shut by 35 fasteners, according to NASA, but two of them proved too difficult to open.
Prying the mechanism loose is no simple task. The space agency must use preapproved materials and tools around the capsule to minimize the risk of damaging or contaminating the samples. These "new tools also needed to function within the tightly-confined space of the glovebox, limiting their height, weight, and potential arc movement," said Dr. Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curation lead at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a statement. "The curation team showed impressive resilience and did incredible work to get these stubborn fasteners off the TAGSAM head so we can continue disassembly. We are overjoyed with the success."
To address the issue, NASA said they designed and fabricated two new, multi-part tools out of surgical steel. NASA says that a "few additional disassembly steps" still remain, but there's a video on their web site showing the operation (along with some pictures).
NASA adds that "Later this spring, the curation team will release a catalog of the OSIRIS-REx samples, which will be available to the global scientific community." But CNN notes that an analysis of material from last fall "already revealed the samples from the asteroid contained abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals as well as carbon," CNN reports. And they add that scientists believe this bolsters the theory that water arrived on Earth billions of years ago on an asteroid...
"This week, NASA won its battle against those fasteners."
More details from CNN: The space agency already harvested about 2.5 ounces (70 grams) of rocks and dust from its OSIRIS-REx mission, which traveled nearly 4 billion miles to collect the unprecedented sample from the near-Earth asteroid called Bennu. But NASA revealed in October that some material remained out of reach in a capsule hidden inside an instrument called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism — a robotic arm with a storage container at one end that collected the sample from Bennu. The sampler head is held shut by 35 fasteners, according to NASA, but two of them proved too difficult to open.
Prying the mechanism loose is no simple task. The space agency must use preapproved materials and tools around the capsule to minimize the risk of damaging or contaminating the samples. These "new tools also needed to function within the tightly-confined space of the glovebox, limiting their height, weight, and potential arc movement," said Dr. Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curation lead at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a statement. "The curation team showed impressive resilience and did incredible work to get these stubborn fasteners off the TAGSAM head so we can continue disassembly. We are overjoyed with the success."
To address the issue, NASA said they designed and fabricated two new, multi-part tools out of surgical steel. NASA says that a "few additional disassembly steps" still remain, but there's a video on their web site showing the operation (along with some pictures).
NASA adds that "Later this spring, the curation team will release a catalog of the OSIRIS-REx samples, which will be available to the global scientific community." But CNN notes that an analysis of material from last fall "already revealed the samples from the asteroid contained abundant water in the form of hydrated clay minerals as well as carbon," CNN reports. And they add that scientists believe this bolsters the theory that water arrived on Earth billions of years ago on an asteroid...
Would it kill /. to use AI instead of editors? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
LOL! I hadn't noticed and those usually jump to my face. Must be a stealth one :) But seriously, a simple browser spell checker would have done the job!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the AI editor would run a spellchecker and at least not write Capusleâ¦
Says somebody who can't even use ASCII quotes.
They've only been around since 1961, FFS.
Re: (Score:2)
spellchecker
The residents of Capusle, Montenegro would like a word with you.
I can just see (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
imagine if the money for this went to the poor and disenfranchised
Imagine if you could walk and talk on your phone at the same time.
Republicans are blocking money from getting to the poor and disenfranchised [thehill.com]. Go complain to them.
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine if you could walk and talk on your phone at the same time.
My observation has been many people have problems with this. And, now that texting is the prevailing means of communication, it's gotten even worse.
Not that I disagree with your point at all. I just get tired of people almost walking into me while they stare intently downward at their phone, regardless of their political affiliation.
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine if the money for recreational wars and tax cuts for the rich went to the poor and disenfranchised.
Re: (Score:1)
If the money didn't go to NASA, it would be going to corporations so they can buy back stock.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because they are not real journalists.
Re: Why were they stuck? (Score:1)
They were designed to be vacuum tight and resist both subzero temps and extreme heat of re-entry. They were subjected to shock, vibration, temperature fluctuations, and all kinds of other stresses. They were a one off design that could not be field tested. 2 stuck out of 35 is a pretty good rate under those conditions, and they didn't fail, they just got stuck and ultimately, they were successfully unstuck.
If you think your engineering prowess could do better, apply for a job at NASA.
Re: (Score:2)
I saw that video mentioned in the summary. This "fastener" didn't appear to be anything extraordinary. It looked exactly like a half inch screw with a Phillips head.
Re: Why were they stuck? (Score:1)
Good thing you're not engineering anything important then hey.
Phillips screws?? (Score:3)
Did I see what I thought I saw, that the fasteners were on there or were Philips head screws? If that is the case that seems ill conceived. And looks from the video why they needed this custom tool to provide enough downward pressure on the screw head to lessen the risk of stripping it. Seems like they would want to use something like a hexagon or Robertson drive head on those screws. Was this made in China?
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC screws in space are expected to weld to the surface metal by some sort of vacuum-ion exchange and Phillips are known to be inappropriate.
One might expect an engineering handbook to contain these requirements, being 70 years after NASA was started.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree... Philips/Pozidrive screw heads would not have been my first choice for such a task. Even hex-driver or torx would have been superior I would have thought.
Many a time I ended up having to drill out the Philips-head screws on my old motocross bike engines when they wouldn't yield, even to the most concerted attempts to unscrew them with an impact driver. I ended up replacing them with hex-head screws and never had that problem again.
I believe that torx screws have an even better ability to deliver
Re: (Score:3)
Looking at the high res image, it appears to be more like a MorTorq type of head....but not quite.
https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/jsc2023e058642/jsc2023e058642~orig.jpg [nasa.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Digging a bit deeper, it appears to be a torq-set head, possible a MS33781 spec. The screw itself appears to be a NAS1102.
https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf-file/789805/CoastFabrication/NAS1102-06/1 [datasheetspdf.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Correct, it appears to be a torq-set. Which is actually aerospace rated according to Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like the screws they use on restroom stall partitions to keep people from disassembling/stealing them.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Good! (Score:2)
They finally found the hammer again.
Jaws of life (Score:2)
extra terrestrial life, to stay on topic
The problem was, NASA didn't have the tool (Score:2)
And neither did their sister company IKEA in Jersey.
Phillips-Head Screws (Score:2)
Re: Phillips-Head Screws (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Surgical Steel" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I thought all surgical steel was 316L. on a related note, I'm guessing the low chromium content is to avoid contaminating the samples.
35 fasteners? (Score:2)
NASA - Call Me! (Score:2)
Geeze NASA, next time just call me. All you had to do was run it under hot water for a minute, and then tap the lid a few times with the heavy end of a butter knife.