Jun 10, 2019

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully completed its last week of the Detailed Survey: Equatorial Stations mission phase. This week the team flew the spacecraft at the 6:00 p.m. Local Solar Time station. Station 7 observations included MapCam, OLA, OTES, and OVIRS, which performed continuous linear scans for a full rotation of Bennu. Following these initial observations, the spacecraft performed zig-zag scans using OTES and OVIRS in order to collect data in support of the thermal emission phase function. All of the data collected this week will further inform the team’s decisions for down-selecting sample collection sites in preparation for the Reconnaissance phase of the mission. The team is now preparing for the spacecraft to enter Orbital B.

June 4, 2019, marked 1,000 days since launch, which means OSIRIS-REx has been in flight for over 1,000 days. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has traveled about 2.5 billion km since launch, and has been operating in close proximity to Bennu since late 2018. As of now, one-way light time is 8.34 minutes.