Bennu Dry Run
Today, the Osiris Rex mission should be doing a trial run (dubbed ‘Matchpoint’) for its mission to the Bennu asteroid.It will match the motion of the asteroid and come to within 40m of the surface before pulling away. If all goes well, it will land on the asteroid on October 20, and collect a sample.
It will return the sample to Earth on Sept 24, 2023.
Bennu itself will pass within 0.005AU of Earth on 21st Sept 2060, and then again on 25th Sept 2135. These passes each cause perturbations in the orbit such that subsequent passes become harder to predict.
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