Video! NASA set to launch first asteroid sample return mission next month
The US space agency NASA is all set to launch its first mission to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth, which will help study how planets formed and how life began. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer spacecraft will travel to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu and bring a sample back to Earth for intensive study. After a careful survey of Bennu to characterise the asteroid and locate the most promising sample sites, OSIRIS-REx will collect between 60 to 2,000 grammes of surface material with its robotic arm and return the sample to Earth via a detachable capsule in 2023. "The launch of OSIRIS-REx is the beginning a seven-year journey to return pristine samples from asteroid Bennu," said OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
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