Longueuil, Quebec
This morning at 10:52 a.m. ET, an asteroid sample collected as part of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission landed in the Utah desert. In return for the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) contribution to this mission, a portion of the asteroid material will go to Canada. It will be studied by generations of Canadian and international scientists.
The sample retrieved on asteroid Bennu could hold the answer to some of the most fundamental questions about the solar system's history and the origins of water and life on Earth. The Canadian OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA) instrument played a key role in the mission. It was used to scan and measure the shape of the entire surface of the asteroid and to help select the best site to collect the specimen.
The sample will be sent to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where it will be curated and distributed to scientists and international collaborators. CSA experts and Canadians scientists will participate in the selection of the material that will make up the Canadian sample, set to arrive at the John H. Chapman Space Centre (CSA headquarters), no earlier than 2024. Canada will become the fifth country in the world to get and curate a sample collected in space.
