Hey folks (if folks there be)! I’m one of the new mods for this small community. I’m not by nature a huge poster of content (too many interactions with STRIVES, too many briefings on CUI/ITAR/Limited Rights 🤐)… but I feel like y’all are even tighter-lipped than me....
I feel conflicted on deorbiting the ISS at the end of its operational life. It is showing its age, and newer space stations will be no doubt be better, but it seems a shame to lose such an iconic piece of history....
But, as the saying goes, good things come in small packages. And small though the sample may be, it is 20 times greater than the amount of asteroid material previously returned to Earth by a pair of Japanese sample return missions. A little will go a long way as scientists study the organics and other materials in this asteroid...
Okay, friends. In the spirit of “bringing stuff into the discussion that’s a level lower than press release”, here’s a presentation some of my co-workers authored for the International Astronautical Conference in Paris last fall....