May 2021 Science and Technology

• OSIRIS-REx spacecraft: NASA spacecraft begins 2-year journey home with asteroid samples
  NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft began its historic 2-year mission back to Earth after collecting samples from asteroid Bennu on May 10, 2021. This is NASA's first asteroid sample return mission and it carries a generous amount of rubble collected from the near-Earth asteroid.
  
  The NASA spacecraft bid farewell to its asteroid companion after spending two-and-a-half years together. Bennu, the 4.5 billion-year-old skyscraper-sized asteroid is around 320 million km from the Earth.
  
  NASA had sent the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to the asteroid to survey the surface, collect samples and deliver them back to Earth. The spacecraft had reached asteroid Bennu in 2018 and spent two years flying near and around it, before collecting asteroid rubble from the surface last year.
  
  
• China launches three Yaogan-30 satellites
  China on May 7, 2021, launched the eighth group of three Yaogan-30 satellites into orbit on a Long March 2C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China. The eighth group of three Yaogan-30 satellites will join the seven previous groups in the orbit that had been launched in 2017.
  
  A report issued by the Institute of Microsatellite Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) mentioned that the eighth group of three Yaogan-30 satellites has been built with a new multi-satellite network operation mode, which would be used for electromagnetic environment surveys and other related technical tests.
  
  A small satellite for the Internet of Things (IoT) called Tianqi-12 satellite was also aboard the flight. It would serve the purpose of data connectivity for Guodian Gaoke, a commercial company based in Beijing.
  
  
• China's first Mars rover, Zhu Rong successfully landed on Mars
  The lander carrying China's first Mars rover - Zhu Rong successfully landed on Mars.
  
  Tianwen-1, consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, was launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China's island province of Hainan on 23rd July in 2020 and entered the Mars orbit in February this year.

Published date : 11 Jun 2021 09:42PM