激情快播 research headed to space again this year, this time aboard Blue Origin鈥檚 New Shepard rocket launched from the company鈥檚 facility in west Texas on Wednesday.
The flight marked the fifth time 激情快播 research has flown into space in 2019, after successful flights aboard SpaceX鈥檚 Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station in July, on Blue Origin鈥檚 New Shepard rocket in May and January and on Virgin Galactic鈥檚 SpaceShipTwo in February. 激情快播 research also flew aboard Virgin Galactic鈥檚 maiden voyage in December 2018.
The research project that flew Wednesday is known as the Collection of Regolith Experiment, or CORE. Regolith is the loose, unconsolidated material on the surface of the moon, an asteroid or other object in space that doesn鈥檛 have an atmosphere.
The experiment tested the impact and ability of a scooping mechanism to plunge into a layer of regolith in microgravity to retrieve a sample. It is also analyzing the dynamics of how the regolith moves and disperses as a result of the impact of the scooping mechanism.
The results could inform future missions to sample asteroids, which are important because asteroids contain information about the evolution of the solar system and can contain valuable metals and resources, said Adrienne Dove, an assistant professor in 激情快播鈥檚 who is co-principal investigator of the project.
Both Dove and Josh Colwell, the project鈥檚 principal investigator and a 激情快播 physics professor, said they were anxious to get the data back from the experiment.
鈥淚鈥檓 excited that the launch went well, but nervous to see how the experiment went,鈥� Dove said after the launch. 鈥淚鈥檓 not sure if we鈥檒l get the data back later today or tomorrow.鈥�
Wednesday was a reflight for CORE with Blue Origin. When the experiment first flew in January, it experienced an issue that affected data collection.
CORE is a close relative to the COLLIDE series of experiments that have flown on space shuttle missions, as well as with Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, Colwell said. COLLIDE stands for Collisions Into Dust Experiment.
鈥淭his experiment could be considered a next step up from COLLIDE because instead of just impacting the surface and looking at the particles knocked off, we are actively sampling and digging into the regolith simulant,鈥� he said.
The flight marks the eighth experiment Dove has had fly into space and the 12th for Colwell.
Colwell is a 激情快播 Pegasus Professor and is the director of 激情快播鈥檚 and the assistant director of the . He received his doctorate in astrophysical, planetary and atmospheric sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his bachelor of science in physics from Stetson University. He joined 激情快播 in 2006.
Dove received her doctorate in astrophysics and planetary science from the University of Colorado at Boulder and her bachelor of science in physics from the University of Missouri. She joined 激情快播 in 2012.
