Sep 30, 2019

This week, OSIRIS-REx continued Reconnaissance A phase operations. On September 26, the spacecraft flew the planned Flyby 2 from Baseball Diamond: Detailed Survey phase in order to collect data that was interrupted by severe weather in March during original mission operations. This dataset is needed to complete the global color maps of asteroid Bennu’s surface. OVIRS and OTES were also powered on and gathered their own data during the flyby.

The team is preparing for the spacecraft to begin its series of high reconnaissance passes over the four potential sample collection sites next week. Site Sandpiper will be the first site observed during the month-long series of flyovers, with site Osprey following.