OSIRIS-APEX emerged “unscathed” from its closest-ever pass to our sun on January 2, scientists announced on Tuesday (May 28).
The probe, originally known as OSIRIS-RExhas completed its monster return mission to the asteroid Bennu and is now headed to the space rock Apophis on an extended mission. That new mission requires OSIRIS-APEX to hover 40 million kilometers closer to the sun than before designed to work. Scientists believe several such short passages are necessary to get the probe on its way to Apophis in 2029.
OSIRIS-APEX is in an elliptical orbit around our sun, putting it at its closest point to the star once every nine months. It’s the first close approximation took place on January 2. In early December, in preparation for the intense radiation explosion, the mission team inserted one of OSIRIS-APEX’s two solar panels in such a way that it overshadowed the probe’s most sensitive instrumentswhile the second panel faced the sun to power the spacecraft.
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This piece of creative engineering protected the spacecraft during its dangerously close approach to the sun, just as computer simulations had previously predicted, the mission team shared in a news release this week. 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 was far enough away from the sun to resume normal operations, according to the NASA statement.
Scientists and engineers were also pleasantly surprised to find that an onboard camera performed even better than expected after being exposed to high temperatures during the encounter. MapCam, a medium-range camera that previously mapped Bennu in color and will also map Apophis, saw a 70% reduction in troublesome white spots since April last year, the last time the camera was tested, hot called pixels.
Hot pixels occur as a result of prolonged exposure to solar radiation and are a common problem for cameras in space. While they are normally resolved with controlled heat using built-in heating elements, OSIRIS-APEX’s camera recovered naturally, thanks to the spike in heat resulting from the close encounter with the sun, scientists said.
While mission team members are relieved that OSIRIS-APEX is safe after its first close approach to the Sun, they noted that it is unclear how five more such encounters could affect the probe and its instruments.
The next closest approach to the Sun is scheduled for September 1, when the spacecraft will once again pass within 74.8 million km of the Sun’s surface, well within the orbit of Venus and well beyond the probe’s originally intended operational limits. .