NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has achieved a significant breakthrough as the curation team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston has successfully removed the two fasteners from the sampler head, allowing access to the remainder of the asteroid Bennu sample material.

The team has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to process the more than 70 grams of material accessed previously and to design, develop, and test new tools that enabled them to overcome this obstacle. Eileen Stansbery, division chief for ARES at Johnson, expressed admiration for the team’s innovation and dedication, emphasizing their excitement to uncover the remaining treasure OSIRIS-REx holds.

Following the removal of the fasteners, steps are now underway to complete the disassembly of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) head, which will reveal the rest of the rocks and dust collected by NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission. Once fully visible, ultra-high-resolution pictures of the sample will be taken while it is still inside the TAGSAM head, and the sample will then be removed and weighed to determine the total mass of Bennu material captured by the mission.

The curation processors had encountered a setback in mid-October when it was discovered that two of the 35 fasteners could not be removed with the tools approved for use inside the OSIRIS-REx glovebox. In response, the team designed and fabricated two new multi-part tools, including custom-fabricated bits made from a specific grade of surgical, non-magnetic stainless steel, the hardest metal approved for use in the pristine curation gloveboxes.

Dr. Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curator at Johnson, highlighted the challenges faced in designing tools limited to curation-approved materials to protect the scientific value of the asteroid sample, emphasizing the resilience and incredible work of the curation team in successfully removing the stubborn fasteners from the TAGSAM head.