Flyby

To celebrate the flyby of Earth by the OSIRIS-REx satellite, some of the world-wide followers of the NASA space program posted their smiling faces and waving hands on social media (Twitter: #HelloOSIRISREx) on September 22 of this year.

Sun City-Huntley residents, Ken and Mary Kozy, posted their picture of cheering the satellite onward from the front of their home.

Last year, they were at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center to witness this satellite’s spectacular lift-off. They celebrated with a picnic dinner and a view just 3 miles from the launch site!

Ken and Mary Kozy wave OSIRIS-REx as it flys by earth. (Photo provided)

After orbiting the Sun and travelling over 500 million miles, the unmanned spacecraft is now taking pictures of our Earth and Moon as part of a test and calibration of its cameras and instruments. What a successful trip so far! It already checked on the mysterious Trojan Asteroid, which follows our planet but is always hidden from us by the glare of the Sun. No worries. It’s now confirmed that there’s no danger of collision with us.

OSIRIS-REx, has a bigger mission to complete. The purpose of this year’s fly-by is to get an Earth Gravity Assist (EGA) to allow it to change course by 6 degrees and catch up with an asteroid called Bennu. That asteroid might crash into us in approximately 100 years. Next year, OSIRIS-REx is programmed to carefully study the physics of the asteroid. It will scoop up some of the unique surface that is billions of years-old and bring it back to Earth in 2023 for analysis.

Once it releases its precious cargo into the Earth’s atmosphere and back to NASA, this spacecraft will place itself into a permanent orbit around the Sun to last millions of years. Eventually, someone, or some being, will notice it, and out of curiosity capture it to look inside.

What will they find millions of years from now?

They will find in this time capsule’s memory, evidence that we humans existed on Earth in our calendar year 2016 A.D. As a result of our space agency’s world-wide invitation, over 7,000 original digital artworks including photos, music, messages and literature were submitted to NASA and they were uploaded into the satellite’s memory unit. After all, if those discoverers are smart enough to capture this satellite travelling about 20,000 miles per hour, they should be smart enough to read and translate its contents.

Inside a memory unit is an eBook submitted by Ken Kozy, which was translated by computers into 7 languages widely read on Earth today. The title of the electronic book is: “A Baby Changes our World.” Ken wrote the eBook using 7-Dimensional eCommunication Concepts that are basic to all humans. The story, based upon the Christian Bible, describes the birth, and summarizes the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This could make for interesting reading millions of years from now. Other people submitted their beliefs and art as well.

Ken and Mary were very happy to wave and smile at the exact NASA-calculated moment (11:52 am CT on 9/22/17) when OSIRIS-REx was closest to Earth (10,711 miles over the South Pole area) and experienced its EGA. Dante Lauretta, NASA’s Principal Investigator for this project, tweeted: “Congratulations @OSIRISREx team on a successful Earth Gravity Assist – trajectory is absolutely perfect – right up the middle!”

To read or download the free eBook and view the videos of the launch and the mission details go to: www.KenKozy.com. There, you will also find internet links related to the flyby including photos and graphics under the tab: “Satellite Flyby.”

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