One of the primary reasons the OSIRIS-REx team chose Bennu as a destination for the OSIRIS-REx mission is that it has a 1/2700 chance of impacting Earth between 2175 and 2199. It’s unusual orbit consistently brings it within 100,000 to 460,000 miles from Earth every six years. This distance is alarmingly close, as the Moon is 238,900 miles away from Earth. Bennu will pass by us in 2060, 2135, and 2175.
This means that Bennu has the potential to crash into Earth so we need to learn as much as we can about NEO’s such as Bennu.
NASA’s New Frontiers program launched the OSIRIS-REx space probe in early September 2016. The probe reached Bennu in early December 2018 making the asteroid the smallest body that a NASA spacecraft has ever orbited. The probe’s close orbit around the Bennu is also the closest orbit for any spacecraft around an object.
During its orbit, the spacecraft extensively mapped the asteroid in great detail until early April 2021 when it successfully touched down briefly upon the surface of Bennu to collect a sample of the asteroid. But this wasn’t a “touch down” in the traditional sense of a plane landing.
The “landing” was what the team calls a “touch-and-go” event and lasted a little bit over 5 seconds with the spacecraft launching back into orbit after collecting samples of debris it kicked up during those 5 seconds.
It will take the OSIRIS-REx mission teams about another week to determine how much of a sample was collected by the spacecraft from the landing site, named Nightingale. As far as we know, the collection is was successful during the “Touch-and-Go” event.
You may have noticed that the two landing sites are named after birds. Well keeping with the same bird theme, the NASA team has named all of the potential landing sites after birds. In all, there are four, Nightingale, Kingfisher, Osprey, and Sandpiper.