Planets and Moons  ID: 20261

Journey to Bennu Trailer

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on a mission to explore asteroid Bennu and return a sample to Earth. The OSIRIS-REx launch window opens on September 8, 2016, when the spacecraft begins its two-year journey to Bennu aboard an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral, Florida. After arriving at Bennu in 2018, OSIRIS-REx will spend over a year exploring the asteroid before approaching its surface to grab a sample. This pristine material, formed at the dawn of the solar system, will be returned to Earth in 2023, providing clues to Bennu's origins and our own.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta is the mission's principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
 

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Animation Credits

Walt Feimer (HTSI): Lead Animator
Lisa Poje (USRA): Animator
Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Technical Support
Michael Lentz (USRA): Animator
Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA): Animator
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20261

Mission:
OSIRIS-REX

Keywords:
SVS >> Asteroid
SVS >> OSIRIS-REx
NASA Science >> Planets and Moons
SVS >> Bennu