OSIRIS-APEX emerged “unharmed” from its closest pass to our Sun on Jan. 2, scientists announced Tuesday (May 28).
The probe, originally known as OSIRIS-RExcompleted its sample return mission to asteroid Bennu and is now heading to the space rock Apophis on an extended mission. This new mission requires OSIRIS-APEX to glide 25 million miles (40 million kilometers) closer to the sun than it was before. designed to operate. Scientists consider several close passes necessary for the probe to follow the path to reach Apophis in 2029.
OSIRIS-APEX is in an elliptical orbit around our Sun, which brings it closest to the star once every nine months. It’s the first of its kind close approach occurred on January 2nd. To prepare for the intense burst of radiation, in early December the mission team placed one of OSIRIS-APEX’s two solar panels so that shadowed the probe’s most sensitive instrumentswhile the second panel faced the sun to power the spacecraft.
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This bit of creative engineering protected the spacecraft during its dangerously close approach to the Sun, just as computer simulations had previously predicted, the mission team shared this week in a NASA statement.
“It’s phenomenal how well our spacecraft configuration protected OSIRIS-APEX, so I’m really encouraged by this first close perihelion pass,” said Ron Mink, OSIRIS-APEX mission systems engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center. at NASA in Maryland.
Telemetry data downloaded from the spacecraft in mid-March assured scientists of its good health. By early April, the probe had moved far enough away from the Sun to resume normal operations, according to the NASA statement.
Scientists and engineers were also pleasantly surprised to note that an onboard camera performed even better than expected after being exposed to high temperatures during the encounter. MapCam, a mid-range camera that previously mapped Bennu in color and will also map Apophis, has seen a 70% reduction in pesky white spots called hot pixels since April last year, the last time the camera was tested.
Hot pixels occur due to prolonged exposure to solar radiation and are a common problem with cameras in space. While they are typically resolved with controlled heat using built-in heaters, OSIRIS-APEX’s camera was restored naturally, thanks to increased heat from the close solar encounter, the scientists said.
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While mission team members are relieved that OSIRIS-APEX is safe after its first close approach to the Sun, they noted that it is unclear how five more such encounters could impact the probe and its instruments.
The next closest approach to the Sun is scheduled for September 1, when the spacecraft will once again pass within 46.5 million miles (74.8 million km) of the Sun’s surface, well within Earth’s orbit. Venus and far beyond the operational limits originally predicted by the probe.
