Launch updates: Good weather for Atlas V OSIRIS-REx liftoff

The first ever United States asteroid mission begins Thursday as NASA space probe OSIRIS- REx is launched into space to track down a potentially risky asteroid called Bennu; a large roundish space rock that is on NASA’s list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids.

A rocket set to take off Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral, Fla., is part of a mission by NASA and the University of Arizona to send a robot to an asteroid.

“Once the sample site has been selected, OSIRIS-REx will break from its polar orbit to practice three flyovers of the site at increasing proximities, eventually matching Bennu’s speed and rotation”. Not only will the robotic probe named Osiris-Rex fly to this ancient asteroid, it will scout it out for two years before scooping up some gravel and dust, and deliver the samples back to Earth.

There’s also the possibility the asteroid could strike the Earth in the late 22 century, which is one reason the space rock was chosen for the OSRIS-Rex mission. “Much, much safer for a spacecraft in that environment”. It’s collaborating with the European Space Agency on the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment Mission, and it’s working with other NASA departments on the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The pair of extra small engines give NASA’s navigators a fine-grained level of control, and completes a suite of 28 different engines on board. If it has enough gas left in the tank, it may earn an extended mission. At this point, the Centaur RL10 engine will ignite and the OSIRIS-REx will enter an Earth “parking orbit”.

Like OSIRIS-REx, both missions are “PI-led”, meaning they were selected by NASA in competitions.

The OSIRIS-REx will remain in orbit around the sun.

Two ounces, or the equivalent of four tablespoons of sugar, is the minimum desired sample, but the container could scoop up more than four pounds.

OSIRIS-REx won’t be landing on the asteroid to make the grab; the low gravity situation and the fact that Bennu is basically a loosely-held pile of rubble makes that next to impossible, and very unsafe.

In 2035, it will make a particularly close approach, passing within the orbit of the moon, and Earth will give enough of a gravitational kick that astronomers can not precisely predict where the asteroid will go after that.

July 2020 Land and vacuum approx. NASA’s calling it a Touch-and-Go Collection, or the “high-five”.

When the team added instruments to make detailed measurements of Bennu before grabbing the sample, Lauretta tacked Rex (Regolith Explorer) on to the name, because of the connotation with Tyrannosaurus rex and dinosaurs. In exchange, the agency will receive technical support and samples from other probe missions.

On Sept. 24, 2023, the 100-pound capsule – identical to one NASA’s Stardust mission used to bring back comet dust – will plunge into Earth’s atmosphere at 27,000 miles per hour.

But how on earth, or rather, how in the universe does REx actually do his thing?

Identifying the asteroid’s core components, which haven’t changed in 4.5 billion years could help answer the question of where we come from, Principal Investigator Prof.