NASA Astromaterials: OSIRIS-REx News April 2025
The OSIRIS-REx curation team has continued to expand and enrich the NASA OSIRIS-REx catalog – this newsletter includes the second update of the catalog since its initial publication in March 2024. In this update, there are fifty newly announced samples, which notably include newly named pristine samples from inside the TAGSAM head and the first two samples returned from investigators.
We have continued to slowly and steadily scan pristine samples via X-ray computed tomography (XCT), which so far, are the most robust data sets for considering heterogeneity between samples and within samples while keeping those samples curation pristine (Figures 1 and 2).
XCT scans collected of OSIRIS-REx samples for catalog development are available upon request – both as tiff stack videos that are viewable with a broad range of available video software and/or as XCT data cubes that can be analyzed with specialized software.
We have received very few requests for XCT data sets therefore with this Astromaterials Newsletter release we are adding an image from each XCT scan to sample details page for each XCT scanned sample. In addition, we are gradually adding text descriptions of the XCT scan data to the sample records in the catalog.
The next sample request deadline for OSIRIS-REx samples curated by NASA will be Monday June 2, 2025. The curation team is actively working on allocating approved samples from the first review round, processing samples to be transferred to OSIRIS-REx mission international partner the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and continuing to support the mission sample analysis team.
As such, we appreciate your patience as we manage these important allocations and commit to allocating samples for this next sample request deadline. With this newsletter release, we have updated the sample request form, collection conservation plan, and email address to which sample requests should be submitted.
From the fifty-six sample requests reviewed for the last request deadline, twenty were approved and nine were determined to be selectable. Most of the approved and selectable requests were “with qualifications” If you are considering submitting a sample request for this round and have questions, please feel welcome to reach out via email to the collection curator (Dr. Nicole Lunning).
Figure 2: OREX-800141-0 XCT scan image. — NASA
Astrobiology, Astrochemistry, Astrogeology
