OSIRIS-APEX survived its second encounter with the Sun

OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft successfully survived the meeting with the Sun, which took place in the autumn of 2024. This was reported by the deputy project manager Mike Moreau.

OSIRIS-APEX (concept). Source: NASA

The OSIRIS-APEX mission (originally, OSIRIS-REx) was launched in 2016 to study the asteroid Bennu. After successfully delivering a sample of its soil to Earth, the spacecraft was given a new task: studying the asteroid Apophis. In 2029, it will make a close flyby of our planet and approach it at a distance less than the height of the orbits of geostationary satellites.

Scientists hypothesize that the convergence will impact Apophis and cause changes to its surface and seismic shifts. OSIRIS-APEX will reach the asteroid a week after it passes Earth. Over the next 18 months, it will study the small body and how the encounter with our planet affected it.

But to reach Apophis, OSIRIS-APEX will first have to perform a series of maneuvers that include six approaches to the Sun for a minimum distance of 75 million km (half the distance between the Earth and the Sun). That’s 40 million kilometers Therefore, the vehicle would be exposed to much higher temperatures than its designers had anticipated.closer to the luminary than the original flight plan provided. Therefore, the vehicle would be exposed to much higher temperatures than its designers had anticipated.

To solve the problem of excessive heating the engineers devised the following plan. During the perihelion passage, one of the OSIRIS-APEX solar panels is rotated to shade the most sensitive components. However, since in this configuration only one of the low-gain antennas can communicate with the spacecraft, only a limited set of data is received from the spacecraft to Earth, which does not allow for a full assessment of its technical status.

Therefore, it is only now that mission specialists have been able to obtain full telemetry from OSIRIS-APEX. The analysis showed that after the approach to the Sun in the autumn of 2024, the vehicle is in good technical condition and all its systems are in normal operation.

OSIRIS-APEX has four more solar approaches to perform, the next of which will take place in May 2025. The mission plan calls for the vehicle to reach the asteroid Apophis on April 21, 2029.

Earlier we covered ESA’s plans to send its own mission to Apophis.

According to NASA

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