Welcome to my blog site! I have the good fortune to travel the world for work and pleasure, meeting people from all walks of life. I have had a passion for all things geology and space since I was 5 years old. My areas of specialty is the study of meteorites, asteroids, cosmochemistry, and rocky-planet formation with an emphasis in petrology and geochemistry. My research bridges geology, planetary sciences and astrophysics. It is also founded in space missions.
I am also an explorer of Space, Time, and the Human experience, which I do so in specific ways. First, I am the founding Chair and Professor of the Department of Geology at Rowan University.
Second, I am a member of two asteroid sample return space missions, OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2. For OSIRIS-REx, I am also an upper manager of the science team and am the first in history to hold the title of Mission Sample Scientist.
Finally, I am human, obviously, and as thus have diverse experiences, many of which I will be sharing with you through this website. I hope you enjoy exploring my site, learning about me and my life and, most importantly, my science and through that process the general nature of science (mainly, but not limited to natural/physical) and scientists.
News
September 22, 2023 Dugway Proving Ground, Utah USA
On 8:55 AM locate time (MDT, Utah) the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule (SRC) will gently land in the Utah desert. I am in Utah with the recovery team making ready for this historic event today. The event will be broadcast live on NASA.gov. We have been performing many tasks needed to complete our readiness before the landing of the SRC in just 2, brief days. During the event, I will be located in the Operation/Command Center, watching on many screens while the field recovery team deploys to the landing area to retrieve the SRC. Once secured, the SRC will be flown by helicopter to the Avery Complete, building 1012, where it will be quickly placed into the temperary clean room. There, folks from Lockheed Martin (LM) and NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) curation team members will quickly get the SRC under a nitrogen purge (isolating it from further interactions with Earth’s atmosphere) and prepare the precious sample of asteroid Bennu for transportation to Houston, TX, for delivery to JSC. We leave 8:00 AM location time on September 25th, via a C-17 airplane, we fly to Ellington airbase, which is near JSC. The sample is then trucked into JSC, brought to building 31, which is the home of the OSIRIS-REx curation facility. Once in the building, the SRC will go into the Advanced Curation Facility for cleaning and then moved upstairs to the brand new OSIRIS-REx cleanroom for further process. I will update you all on what happens during the sample process phase, also known as Preliminary Examination (PE) soon.
I want you all to know that I feel like a kid again, the wonders of science sending chills of excitement through my body! I can remember watching the images from Voyager 1 and 2 come in live on PBS–this feels a lot like it did then, some 40 odd years ago. So many people have helped get us to this point and we all on the team have such gratitude for them, each other, and for all of you reading this post and all the posts about the mission, thank you.
Go OSIRIS-REx!
A group of folks involved in the SRC recovery standing in front of the NASA helicopter that will support the field recover efforts (image compliments of NASA and Liz Will). From left to right: Dr. Jeff Grossman (NASA HQ), me, Dr. Kathleen Vander Kaaden (NASA HQ), Dr. Melissa Morris (NASA HQ) and Dr. Tim McCoy (Smithsonian).
In this image, I am standing in the very spot outside the temporary clean room at the Avery Complete at UTTR where I will stand when the SRC is processed for shipping to JSC. The SRC will be inside the clean room.
August 30, 2023
Only 25 days until the delivery of the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule (SRC), which will gently land in the desert of Utah at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR). This week the OSIRIS-REx recovery team, which I am part of, successfully completed the vary last rehearsal in preparation of the activities to come on September 24, 2023. I am beyond ecstatic and have been waiting since 2008 for this remarkable day to come! Imaging within UTTR is strictly forbidden unless pre-approved and reviewed by the US military. So, sorry folks, no images from me. But happy words of gratitude to everyone on the recovery team who makes this all possible including my deputy (DMSS) Dr. Tim McCoy of the Smithsonian, Anjani Polit Mission Implementation System Engineer (MISE) from the University of Arizona, Dr. Jason Dworkin, Project Scientist (PS) and Contamination Control Working Group (CCWG), the amazing curation team headed by Curator Dr. Nicole Lunning, Deputy Curator Dr. Kevin Righter, Deputy Curator Dr. Christopher Snead and all those who support the curation activities, plus the PI, my friend and colleague Regents Prof. Dante S. Lauretta. There are so many, many more folks to thanks and I will do so in time.
June 27-28, 2023
The Sample Return Capsule Recovery team practiced for two days various scenarios associated with the precious sample of asteroid Bennu being delivered to Earth within the Utah dessert on September 24, 2023! We were at the Lockheed Martin facility in Littleton, CO, where we had a highly successful two days through a lot of hard work and fun!
Member of the team in the field practicing taking soil samples at the landing site.
Myself with members of the curation team watching the SRC field team activities.
May 30, 2023
I have not been very diligent about updating my website and I am sorry for that. I need to start. Much has happened since I lived in Japan with the post below. Now is the time that we are preparing for the return of the OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Capsule (SRC) that contains the precious sample of asteroid 101955 Bennu! Below is an image of our Sample Analysis Team Meeting #3, the last before SRC return on September 24, 2023.
Post below is from 2021:
2 August 2021: I am in Japan, currently a Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo. While in Japan, I will be observing and participating in the analysis of the sample of asteroid Ryugu returned by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which is currently being analyzed in ernest. I arrived on 23 June 2021, went into self-quarantine, and then have been working at the Univeristy and traveling Japan to different analytical laboratories for the analysis or return Ryugu samples! It’s been an adventure for sure. The two images above were taken in Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, in the laboratory of my colleague and friend Distinguished Professor Yorimoto. We spent a day working on samples and having many discussions. It was awesome! It has been really hot, even in Sapporo also known as land of snow in the winter, where it was 35C when I visited. Tokyo has been like that for days on end. Stay tuned for more from me about my crazy adventure in science during a pandemic.
Arrival at Bennu gif!
Closure of SRC with TAGSAM collect head locked into place! The event took place on 28 October 2020!
TAGSAM collection head ‘leaking’ particles of Bennu post-collection, 22 October 2020.
19 November 2020: We did it! OSIRIS-REx collected a sample on 20 October 2020 and wow did it collect! We penetrated the surface about 48 cm and it seems the collection head was totally packed. In fact, as we articulated the arm towards the cameras to image the TAGSAM (Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head, we imaged particles escaping from the collector! We canceled the Sample Mass Movement (SMM) event and stowed the sample one week ahead of schedule.
13 September 2020: It’s been a long time since I have updated this site. OSIRIS-REx is healthy and we will be collecting a sample in a little over a month. Our two practice maneuvers were highly successful. Since the pandemic of COVID 19 hit, life has been interesting. Please stay tuned for more posts in the near future and I hope you are all well!
17 July 2019: Since 12 June 2019, OSIRIS-REx has successfully entered into Orbital B and has successfully be moving to complete the new mapping campaign. One of the major emphases of orbit B will be to look for additional particle ejection events from OSIRIS-REx, an active, type B asteroid. In addition, OLA will take extensive data of the surface of Bennu–a first in the history of small, rocky-body exploration.
31 December 2018: OSIRIS-REx successfully maneuvered into orbit around asteroid Bennu. Bennu is the smallest Solar System body to ever be orbited by a spacecraft.
12 December 2018: We announced the detection of hydrated minerals on the surface of asteroid Bennu, just as was predicted by the team (and others) before arrival! We also predicted the shape correctly, thanks to Mike Nolan and others. So exciting.
16 November 2018: OSIRIS-REx image of target asteroid Bennu!
Watch the PBS News Hour short on OSIRIS-REx!
Video Blog
Through my video blog, I share the experiences of my exploration of space and time and, of course, the greatest practice of them all, the human experience known as life. Sometimes we have a lot of fun making the video blogs!
Check out my last video blog here
For all previous video blogs, please see my the blog section of this website.
Podcasts
Welcome to Science Unbound, my podcast. The podcast was renamed from Harold C. Connolly Jr. in January of 2021. A major reason for the change to the podcast title is to better reflect a new emphasis focused on the subject of the integration of science into our lives and the importance of that integration. The podcast subject matter and the many interviews are an expression of my own life experiences. In this podcast we explore how science, and thus scientists, is not performed in a social/cultural/economic vacuum through interviews and discussions with friends and colleagues. My guests and I talk about their life experiences in the sciences and engineering, exploring space and time, and the cultural systems along with aspects of their personal lives that influence the production and philosophy of science. Through these podcasts we show how no conflict exists between science and any other area of life or academic disciplines. The sciences are performed by people, and herein is what we explore, experiences and the sciences.
To listen to my Podcasts, click here.
Harold C. Connolly Jr. 