This mission is heading to an asteroid called Bennu with plans to take a sample of the asteroid and return it to Earth for study.
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The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft lifted off atop an Atlas V rocket at 7:05 p.m. EDT (4.35 a.m. Friday, India time) as planned from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, beginning a journey that could revolutionise our understanding of the early solar system, NASA said.
OSIRIS-REx will then head back to Earth and deliver the sample in September 2023 where it will be studied at #NASA’s Johnson Spaceflight Center in Houston, where the original moon rocks were taken decades ago.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way to an intriguing asteroid named Bennu, and Dante Lauretta couldn’t be happier.
Yesterday the NASA Osiris-Rex mission launched without a hitch. NASA has confirmed that the solar arrays have deployed and are now powering the spacecraft. The spacecraft includes Solar Array Drive Assemblies (SADAs) built by SNC, which support the OSIRIS-REx mission to investigate formation of the solar system and the origin of organics that may have led to life on Earth and potentially elsewhere. The probe will study the asteroid from orbit for two years, and then grab at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of dirt and gravel from its surface in July 2020.
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“We are very interested to see if the elemental chemistry we “predicted” with our X-ray measurements at Bennu proves to be correct”, Richard Binzel, MIT’s principal investigator for REXIS, said in a news release. “We’re honored to work with organizations like Lockheed Martin and NASA, continuing our long heritage of support to solar system exploration”. Osiris-REx is an acronym, which is no surprise when you consider how famous NASA is for acronym names. The first two – New Horizons and Juno – have already made contributions to the study of the outer Solar System and are still operating. Over the next four years, scientists from around the world will come to Tucson to support mission operations at the UA. Luckily, the explosion was at a location down the road from NASA’s launch pad for the asteroid mission, so the agency didn’t face any delays. Launch and countdown management is the responsibility of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
