240-OSIRIS-REx TAG Trailer

On Oct. 20, the OSIRIS-REx mission will perform the first attempt of its Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event. Not only will the spacecraft navigate to the surface using innovative navigation techniques, but it could also collect the largest sample since the Apollo missions.
On Sept. 8, NASA launched the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security – Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid. The spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at near-Earth asteroid Bennu in 2018, survey the asteroid’s surface, retrieve at least 60 grams (2.1 ounces) of surface material, and return the sample to Earth in 2023 for study. Analysis of the sample will reveal the earliest stages of the solar system’s evolution and the history of Bennu over the past 4.5 billion years.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, will return to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, with material from asteroid Bennu. When it arrives, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will release the sample capsule for a safe landing in the Utah desert. The pristine material from Bennu – rocks and dust collected from the asteroid’s surface in 2020 – will offer generations of scientists a window into the time when the Sun and planets were forming about 4.5 billion years ago.