New mission, who dis?
Gizmodo reached out to NASA to check in on the status of the spacecraft following this first solar flyby.
NASAs OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft continues to transmit a telemetry signal and operate normally in its new configuration.
An artist’s depiction of the spacecraft on the surface of Apophis.Illustration: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
But any time you take a piece of space flight hardware beyond the design criteria you incur risk.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft nailed its previous mission, dropping off the precious cargo as planned.
Since landing on Earth, however, engineers have been havingtrouble opening the canister containing the space rock samples.
This article was updated to include the January 4 statement from NASA.
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