HAMPTON, Va. — What are the 200 best inventions of 2023?
TIME released a list and three of the inventions have a connection to NASA's Langley Research center in Hampton.
One of the inventions is the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which collected samples from a near-earth asteroid to be brought back to earth and studied.
Dr. Eric Queen started working on the OSIRIS-REx mission in 2010 and was part of the team at NASA’s Langley Research Center that helped with the spacecraft’s entry, descent, and landing back on earth.
A video on a computer screen in his office showed the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returning to earth in September.
“There were no sensors on board, so we have no on-board information. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what happened as it was coming in," Queen explained.
The hope is the material the spacecraft collected from the asteroid will help determine if asteroids hitting earth billions of years ago brought water and other elements for life.
“It’s been a long time coming and it was really great to see it come to fruition and work out so well," said Queen.
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Carey Scott helped monitor the re-entry capsule’s wake, heat shield, and environment around the capsule as it was coming back to earth.
“It allows researchers across the agency to better develop their tools for other vehicles entering planetary atmospheres," Scott said about the data collected. "The data that we collected, at first look, there's really good data. We got spectral data, which are a little bit different than the normal kind of imagery that you would see. We're still kind of combing through that, we're still analyzing it."
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He said lessons learned from assisting the Japanese with a similar mission in 2020 were used to help prepare for the OSIRIS-REx mission.
“It’s always an honor to be part of something really historic and really special. Obviously, working at NASA you get to be part of really awesome projects," said Scott.
