As NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft managed to perform its sample-gathering mission at asteroid Bennu successfully, the US space agency has released a series of images showing the manoeuvre carried out by the probe.
According to SciTechDaily, some 189 images have been captured by the craft's NavCam2 camera that took them for the craft's Natural Feature Tracking navigation system which allowed OSIRIS-REx to guide itself to the asteroid's surface autonomously.
The sequence made of the images in question shows how the craft approaches the designated touchdown area on the asteroid and at some point, the probe's sampling arm comes into view as OSIRIS-REx goes in to, as the video's description on YouTube says, "punch" the asteroid with it and collect the material that got ejected from the space rock into space upon impact.
Though the collection part of the mission resulted in a success, the spacecraft still has a long way to go to deliver its precious cargo to Earth, with OSIRIS-REx's arrival expected in September 2023.
