A NASA spacecraft is stuffed with so much asteroid rubble from this week's grab that it's jammed open and precious particles are drifting away in space, scientists said Friday.

Scientists announced the news three days after the spacecraft named Osiris-Rex briefly touched asteroid Bennu, NASA's first attempt at such a mission.

The mission's lead scientist, Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, said Tuesday's operation 200 million miles away collected far more material than expected for return to Earth—in the hundreds of grams. The sample container on the end of the robot arm penetrated so deeply into the asteroid and with such force, however, that rocks got sucked in and became wedged around the rim of the lid.

NASA's Human Landing System (HLS) Program recently checked off a key milestone in its progress toward landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024. The HLS Program conducted Certification Baseline Reviews (CBR) with the three U.S. companies competing to provide landers that will deliver Artemis astronauts to the Moon. These virtual meetings were the culmination of critical work by NASA and the companies since NASA announced the base period selections in April.

Since then, NASA has worked closely with the Blue Origin-led team, Dynetics, and SpaceX to better understand their human landing system proposals and approach for the agency's Artemis program. The primary purpose of the CBRs was to finalize the functional and performance requirements for the companies' landing system designs, confirm the standards to be applied to lander development, establish the baseline designs, schedules, and management plans for HLS contract execution and human spaceflight certification. Dr. Lisa Watson-Morgan, the HLS program manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, chaired the CBR board that approved the certification baseline for each contractor.

Seeking to leverage NASA's human spaceflight experience and the commercial sector's speed and innovation, the agency specified a concept of operations and high-level requirements and standards but did not dictate approach or design, allowing the contractors to propose their own designs.