311-Liftoff of OSIRIS-REx

An Atlas V rocket lifts off at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41.The mission is to send NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. This will be the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid, retrieve at least two ounces of surface material and return it to Earth for study.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to launch on a mission to orbit, map and collect samples from the asteroid Bennu, and return to Earth 7 years later.

NASA’s latest New Frontiers mission, OSIRIS-REx, will venture to a near-Earth asteroid to discover clues about the unique resources asteroids hold, processes that affect asteroids’ orbital paths and their potential for impacting Earth, and the origins of life in the solar system. In addition, OSIRIS-REx will collect a sample from the surface of the asteroid and return it to Earth for generations of scientists to study and analyze, making this the first American asteroid sample return mission and the largest sample returned from an extraterrestrial body since Apollo.

NASA SVS – OSIRIS-REx Launch

NASA SVS – OSIRIS-REx Launch

NASA SVS – OSIRIS-REx Launch