Detailed Survey: Baseball Diamond Phase

After completing Orbital A, OSIRIS-REx begins its in-depth study of asteroid Bennu in earnest during the Detailed Survey: Baseball Diamond phase. During this phase, the spacecraft will back away a few kilometers from Bennu and make multiple passes to fully observe the asteroid with the OCAMS imager from the range viewing angles needed to produce global mosaics and maps. The spacecraft will also use its OTES spectrometer to map the chemical composition of Bennu’s entire surface.

Images obtained during this phase will be of high enough resolution to produce digital terrain maps and global image mosaics for proposed sample sites. Bennu’s terrain will be surveyed in bulk, and sections will be classified as either “safe” or “unsafe,” with the results visualized on a hazard map.

The phase’s name comes from the early stage of mission design when the stations the spacecraft would traverse were arranged in the shape of a baseball diamond.  Although the mission design has since evolved, the original name for the phase remains.

The Detailed Survey: Baseball Diamond phase is scheduled to last until mid-April when the spacecraft will move into Detailed Survey: Equatorial Stations. Get an overview of all the phases of Asteroid Operations.