OSIRIS-REx's First StowCam Space Selfie

This past week at NASA has been amazing for those of us working on the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission!  On September 22, 2016, two weeks after launch, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft switched on our Touch And Go Camera System (TAGCAMS) and successfully acquired 19 images of star fields and spacecraft hardware to demonstrate proper operation in space.  Over the next several days those images were transmitted back to Earth and earlier this week we were treated to this color image.

This picture of the spacecraft was captured by the StowCam portion of TAGCAMS when it was 3.9 million miles (6.17 million km) away from Earth and traveling at a speed of 19 miles per second (30 km/s) around the Sun.  Visible in the lower left hand side of the image is the radiator and sun shade for another instrument (SamCam) onboard the spacecraft.  Featured prominently in the center of the image is the Sample Return Capsule (SRC), showing that our asteroid sample’s ride back to Earth in 2023 is in perfect condition.  In the upper left and upper right portions of the image are views of deep space.  No stars are visible due to the bright illumination provided by the Sun which is coming in from the left of the image frame (the shadow from the bolt is from a reflection off of a bright object to the right).

Those of us on the TAGCAMS team are thrilled with the post-launch performance of the TAGCAMS and extremely pleased with the imaging capabilities that it has demonstrated in orbit thus far.  Its sensitivity significantly exceeds what we predicted it would be during our ground verification test campaign.

It is such a privilege to be a part of a great team.  Tremendous things are undoubtedly in store for us at the asteroid Bennu!

For information on how the rest of the OSIRIS-REx payload check-outs went see:  https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/osirisrex-spacecraft-takes-selfie-space.    

Dr. Brent J. Bos is a research physicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and is currently supporting the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission as the TAGCAMS instrument scientist. The views expressed herein are solely his and should not be construed or interpreted as an official position of or an endorsement by NASA.