Former TV “Science Guy” Bill Nye, who now serves as CEO of The Planetary Society nonprofit organization, cheered on the OSIRIS-REx mission yesterday afternoon here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), just hours before the probe’s 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) launch from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
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NASA has successfully launched OSIRIS-Rex, a seven-year mission to collect samples from an asteroid.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft blasts off aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Thursday evening.
By examining Bennu at length and then providing a soil sample, OSIRIS-REx will give scientists extensive data that will assist in understanding how life first arose on Earth during the early era of the formation of the solar system. Bennu is listed as one of the potentially hazardous asteroids that may impact the Earth in the coming years. Researchers believe asteroid collisions may have provided early Earth with the biochemicals necessary for life.
The rocket will return to Earth in 2023.
“I couldn’t be more proud of all the brilliant faculty and staff who made OSIRIS-REx possible, including the 130 students from 30 different disciplines who have participated in the project”, said UA President Ann Weaver Hart.
Its mission: to land on the nearest asteroid closest to Earth and send back rock and dirt samples.
Osiris-Rex will help scientists better understand the ever-changing paths of asteroids, and that could prove its biggest payoff.
The Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is an innovative machine created to observe and map an asteroid. After dropping the capsule on Earth, OSIRIS-Rex will continue into orbit around the Sun where it will wait for further instructions.
While scientists have planned to study the craft’s vacuumed-up material for two years, Grossman predicts that the rock chips and dust will be the subject of investigation for decades, noting that the original samples from the moon are still being studied today.
The first Nasa explorer of its kind has taken off on a seven-year quest, chasing after a big, black, unexplored asteroid to gather a few handfuls of gravel and bring them back to Earth.
Osiris-Rex will hover like a hummingbird over Bennu, according to Lauretta, as the spacecraft’s 10-foot (3-meter) mechanical arm touches down like a pogo stick on the surface for three to five seconds.
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He said the new office is coordinating with several agencies, the United States government and other nations to help develop resources to defend Earth from asteroids of about 330 feet (100 meters) in size or larger. “We were able to deliver OSIRIS-REx on time and under budget to the launch site, and will soon do something that no other NASA spacecraft has done – bring back a sample from an asteroid”. The first, New Horizons sent a spacecraft past Pluto in July a year ago, and the second, Juno, arrived in orbit at Jupiter this July.
