Last Tuesday,

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft performed the almost impossible,

it collected a sample of the ancient asteroid, known as Bennu, the collection event, known as “Touch-And-Go” (TAG), which if provided enough of a sample, mission teams will command the spacecraft to begin stowing the precious primordial cargo to begin its journey back to Earth in March 2021, now here is the rub, it collected too much! The OSIRIS-REx’s collection chamber can no longer close all the way, leading to some of the material it collected from asteroid Bennu to float away into space. MIT Technology Review explains the reason why the spacecraft collected too much:

Over the last few days, the onboard cameras revealed that the collection chamber was losing particles that were floating into space. “A substantial amount of the sample is seen floating away,” mission lead Dante Lauretta said Friday. As it turned out, the sample collection attempt picked up too much material—possibly up to two kilograms, the upper limit of what OSIRIS-REx was designed to collect. About 400 grams seems visible from the cameras. The collection lid has failed to close properly and remains wedged open by pieces that are up to three centimetres in size, creating a centimetre-wide gap for material to escape.

Image via MIT Technology Review, what to do next? as it happens the craft can be sent to make a second pick up in January, but I guess material blocking the door will have to be cleared first, here's hoping all will go well.