The spacecraft's sampling arm, called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, over the target sample site during a dress rehearsal in April. .

On Tuesday, NASA TV reported the spacecraft's robotic sampling arm, named Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism,  or Tagsam, did touch down on Bennu.  During the brief contact, it performed what amounts to a cosmic pickpocketing maneuver.  Mission planners expected that the total time of contact between the arm and asteroid would be less than 16 seconds.

The spacecraft, which operates largely autonomously due to the 18-minute communications delay with mission control on Earth, fired a canister of gas through Tagsam that disrupted the surface of Bennu and should have enabled a sample to make its way up into the arm's collector head.

Fortunately, Osiris-Rex outperformed its design and was able to perform its sampling on a site dubbed Nightingale, which is only about as big as a few parking spaces. !

There's no guarantee Osiris-Rex has collected a significant sample.

More measurements will be required to confirm material is within the sampling head, but if Osiris-Rex has succeeded, it will join Japan's Hayabusa and Hayabusa-2 missions in the annals of asteroid exploration.

Hayabusa sampled and returned a tiny bit of material from asteroid Itokawa, and Hayabusa2 is in the process of returning a significant sample of space rock Ryugu.