The space capsule carrying NASA's first asteroid samples streaked toward a touchdown in the Utah desert Sunday to cap a seven-year journey.
With the assistance of Earth, the Osiris and Rex spacecraft landed the capsule from 63,000 miles out. The Parachute was expected to descend on the military's Utah Test and Training Range four hours later.
Scientists anticipated getting at least a cup of rubble from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu. Japan, the only other nation to have sent back asteroid samples, has returned about a teaspoon.
The pristine samples are believed to be the remains of the remains of our solar system and will aid scientists in understanding how Earth and life formed.
In 2016, Osiris-Rex sailed on the $1 billion mission. It reached Bennu two years later and, using a long stick vacuum, captured dust and pebbles from the small roundish space rock in 2020. By the time it returned Sunday, the spacecraft had traveled 4 billion miles.
Now free of the sample capsule, Osiris-Rex is already targeting another asteroid. NASA's recovery effort in Utah involves helicopters and a temporary clean room set up at the range. The samples will be flown to the Johnson Space Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday.