“Here we go!” principal investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona tweeted as the spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, blasted off atop an Atlas V rocket at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
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“We keep hitting it out of the park and tonight we hit it off the planet”, said Dr. Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science division.
The U.S. space agency also hopes Osiris-Rex will demonstrate the advanced imaging and mapping techniques needed for future science missions and for upcoming commercial asteroid-mining expeditions.
An ebullient Lauretta came into the press briefing room after the launch pumping his fist.
“We got everything just exactly flawless. The best times are ahead of us”.
NASA on Thursday successfully launched an unmanned spacecraft on a seven-year mission to chase down a nearby asteroid, collect dust samples and bring those samples back to Earth.
The reason the Bennu asteroid was chosen is because it and asteroids of its type are remnants from the formation of the solar system over 4.5 billion years ago.
Bennu, with a diameter of 492 meters, is classified as a potentially hazardous object, with a 1 in 2700 chance of impacting Earth in the 22nd century.
This jet will break off samples to be collected and returned to Earth in 2023. He says fractions of the sample will be shared with partner nations Canada and Japan.
OSIRIS-REx is now on its way into a heliocentric orbit.
He said the mission to Bennu means “great science ahead of us”. The robotic probe will orbit the ancient asteroid, vacuum up some gravel, then haul the sample back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx will scout out the best place to grab a sample off of Bennu’s surface.
Before that, the spacecraft will conduct a two-year study of the third-of-a-mile wide rock and look for a good spot to get the sample. Despite extensive observations of Bennu from ground and space telescopes, no-one knows exactly what to expect there, and it could be hard if not impossible to anchor a spacecraft on the surface, Mr Lauretta said.
OSIRIS-REx carries cameras that were developed at the UA.
“He would’ve been thrilled right now”, Lauretta said.
The $800 million mission will take two years to reach Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid about the size of a small mountain.
NASA’s announcer gave a nice nod to Thursday’s 50th anniversary of the television show “Star Trek” when he said the Atlas would send the probe on a mission “to boldly go” to Bennu.
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Bennu is also one of the oldest known asteroids in the solar system.
