Comprehensive Laboratory Update Project Heralds the Arrival of Never-Before-Seen Asteroid Samples

By: Ian Black

Gathering clues that can tell us more about the history of our solar system is a herculean task requiring both luck and expertise. Collecting data that tells us about such a long time ago—over 4.5 billion years—requires samples from very primitive sources where materials from the dust and gas cloud that gave rise to our solar system can be found. Yet it is this very challenge that the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division (ARES) lab is taking on with the help of the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Secturity-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. To accomplish this exciting research, however, the ARES lab facility needed a sizable overhaul. Fortunately, their longtime partner, RS&H stepped in to develop a one-of-a-kind facility to explore the origins of our local galactic neighborhood. 

The OSIRIS-REx mission

The OSIRIS-REx mission was the first attempt by the US to collect samples from an asteroid. Launched on September 8, 2016, the OSIRIS-REx was sent to a near-Earth asteroid, Bennu, to collect samples of rocks and dust. The reason the Asteroid Bennu was chosen for this mission was that experts believed it to be a primitive type, rich in organic matter. By collecting from this asteroid, researchers hope to learn more about the formation of our solar system. These samples were then delivered back to Earth on September 24, 2023, and the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft departed for a new mission. The samples were returned via a sample return capsule that was recovered with the aid of a portable clean room built specifically for the initial arrival of these samples. From there, the samples were transported to the Johnson Space Center where the ARES team will oversee the categorization, cataloging, and distribution of the samples for analysis.  

In addition to providing clues to the formation of our solar system, the data collected from these samples could yield a better understanding of the surface properties, internal structure, and orbital dynamics of similar asteroids. All of which can help develop better hazard mitigation and asteroid defense in the future.

To complete this work, it was clear that the ARES lab would need some major upgrades, both in its layout and in the form of new cleanrooms. 

The history of RS&H and their work with NASA

Architecture, engineering, and consulting firm, RS&H, has been involved in a wide range of projects since its founding in 1941. While RS&H doesn’t work exclusively in research labs, they have been a consultant to NASA since it was established in 1958. “We’ve designed and supported launch pad facilities and ground support facility design and planning at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) In Florida. Our work includes the recent structural remodeling of the massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC,” says Michael Vascellaro, AIA, NCARB, laboratory planner and architect, vice president.

At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, RS&H was first recruited to facilitate HVAC repair at building 31, where the Moon Rock Curation Facility is located. “Since that project, RS&H has developed a full master plan for the ARES Division that is housed in that building. As part of this master plan, RS&H planned and designed this current Asteroid Curation Clean Room Project as a remodel of a portion of Building 31 and is currently completing construction services for an annex to Building 31 that will house laboratories for sample analysis and cleanrooms supporting the Artemis and Mars missions in development,” says Vascellaro. 

The ARES lab update “master plan”

Long before the OSIRIS-REx delivered its precious payload back to Earth, the RS&H team has been hard at work trying to update a facility that’s more than half a century old and provide it with the equipment and lab space it need. This has been referred to by RS&H as their “master plan.”

“The master plan is an effort to bring together the work of the ARES division into a common building and upgrade an over-50-year-old facility with the infrastructure and capabilities to house the science needed today. The laboratories and clean facilities required today for the analysis of samples we are bringing back from distant celestial bodies are very different from the work NASA conducted to get us into space. The consolidation of the ARES Division is an acknowledgment of these scientific necessities,” says Vascellaro.

While these upgrades were needed, they were far from easy, and the RS&H team faced many difficulties on the way. “The greatest challenge was defining the problem,” says Vascellaro. “Identifying the amount of space needed by an analysis of the equipment to be used within the space was the first challenge. I remember one session with the scientists where we were going over the equipment and we asked if we could get a cut sheet or photo or specifications of the sample box they had requested. They looked at us with a smile and said they would be delighted to provide that as soon as they invented it! It was an item that could not be ordered from Amazon and delivered within two days.”

Building a space to study samples never before seen on Earth

Among the planned upgrades to the ARES facilities was the installation of brand-new, Class 5 cleanrooms for the handling of the samples. These cleanrooms are spaces that receive 300-480 air changes per hour of HEPA-filtered air and where particle counts—anything 5 microns or larger—in the air are reduced to less than 29 particles/meter2. This reduces the potential for Earth-borne contamination of the samples. Building and maintaining these spaces is a large but necessary effort. 

“The research is new. There were no spaces in the world that researched asteroid samples from Bennu. Remember, that these samples need to be preserved not just for research being done today with today's technologies; these samples need to be preserved for the analytical technologies that will be developed over the next century,” exclaims Vascellaro. “Just think of the advances in analytical technologies developed over the past years since we received the first moon samples in 1969. We have abilities now we did not have to uncover structures and compositions of those samples, and if those samples were not preserved the way they were, we would be at a great loss. The same goes for these new samples from these new places and celestial bodies we are exploring.”

With the completion of these upgrades and the arrival of the samples from Bennu courtesy of the OSIRIS-REx mission, the excitement amongst the ARES researchers and the RS&H team is palpable. “We are but an infinitesimal part of a vast universe, and yet we can imagine what our senses and instruments have only just begun to measure. This journey has brought back samples from a distant asteroid with the universe's building blocks not derived from the planet we inhabit,” comments Vascellaro.

The team at RS&H was thrilled to be a part of this great undertaking, building an updated lab that will be examining samples never before seen on this planet. “We worked in collaboration [with the Johnson Space Center], bringing the specifics of their specialized sciences into multidisciplinary teams for common goals for human advancement. To be a small part of this human endeavor to uncover the yet unknown, to strive for a greater understanding of the universe that gave us birth, is to be a part of a greater quest to know ourselves and the common environment we share. This makes this project unique, exciting, inspiring, and satisfying. The spaces that we design facilitate the science that will be conducted within them, making our work a continuation of the greatest human gift—our curiosity—that has helped us survive, advance, and create as a species.”