I lov e some of the stuff they are doing in space. That one that landed on the asteroid, they were expecting to grab 60g of substance but may have got up to a kilo. It's be travelling close to teh asteroid for a while, and the surface wasn't a smooth landscape as they expected, it was really rough. So they had to pre-programme the manding to an area the size of a tennis court, as messages took 18 minutes to reach the craft so they couldn't do it live.
Once it took off from the asteroid they were going to photo the grab to see if it had anything at all, and then extend an arm and do a manoeuvre of the whole craft which would allow them to calculate how much they had. If they were happy then they'd set it off towards home otherwise they were going to set it up for another try.
I think the results are expected in 2 years. So this has been travelling all that time primarily for this one operation. I suppose on a daily basis there isn't much to do, just wait and watch, but the excitement in the related labs and control room must be immense. So much planning must have gone into it. What an achievement!
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Cats on mats new
Cats on mats new
