OSIRIS-REx

HELICOPTER OPERATIONS REHEARSAL – Wednesday, July 1900:00 – Recovery Helicopter One touches down at staged landing area.00:25 – Helicopter safety briefing with pilot and sample recovery team members.01:43 – Helicopter One begins practice sorties with groups of team members.03:30 – Practice towing the SRC on a line and returning it to the ground.05:32 – Team members practice walking in wet and muddy conditions. ||

Recovery team members rehearse bagging and moving OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, ahead of the sample’s return to Earth Sept. 24.Credit: Lockheed Martin Space ||

OSIRIS-REx team members practice extracting samples of asteroid Bennu from the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) on June 8, 2023. Teflon spheres were used to represent material from Bennu. ||

OSIRIS-REx Mission Support Area - TAG Sequence and CelebrationB-ROLL || OSIRIS-REx, which is about the size of a 15-passenger van, is currently orbiting the asteroid Bennu 200 million miles from Earth. Bennu contains material from the early solar system and may contain the molecular precursors to life and Earth’s oceans. The asteroid is about as tall as the Empire State Building and could potentially threaten Earth late in the next century, with a 1‐in‐2,700 chance of impacting our planet during one of its close approaches. OSIRIS-REx is now ready to take a sample of this ancient relic of our solar system and bring its stories and secrets home to Earth. ||

October 20, 2020, 7:29 am MDTFinal commands sent to OSIRIS REx: Go for Touch-And-Go (TAG) Command SequenceLocation: Lockheed Martin Space, Mission Support Area, Littleton, ColoradoCredit: Lockheed Martin || Editor's resource reel - The Go for TAG command sequence is sent to OSIRIS-REx from the Mission Support Area at Lockheed Martin Space on October 20, 2020. || For More Information || See [NASA.gov](https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex) ||

This editor's resource page contains footage of the OSIRIS-REx Science Operations Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and of the Mission Support Area at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. OSIRIS-REx is a NASA mission studying near-Earth asteroid Bennu. It will return a sample of Bennu to Earth in 2023. || The OSIRIS-REx Science Operations Center (SOC) at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Data from the spacecraft are downlinked to the SOC for study by science team members. ||

On September 8, 2016, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft began its journey to near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Just as the sun began to set over Cape Canaveral, OSIRIS-REx made a picture-perfect liftoff at 7:05 pm EDT. It departed Space Launch Complex 41 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 411 rocket, cheered on by crowds of mission personnel and space enthusiasts. The launch sent OSIRIS-REx on a seven-year journey to asteroid Bennu and back.An excerpt of the launch broadcast appears at the top of this page. Raw camera feeds from Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center appear below. These clips are intended as a video editor's resource, and are available for download in their original DVCPRO HD format. Launch commentary is provided by KSC host Mike Curie.Learn more about OSIRIS-REx from NASA and the University of Arizona. ||

B-roll of OSIRIS-REx arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in May 2016, leading to a spin test and balance test. || Footage of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft being assembled and tested at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton, Colorado. In this video, the spacecraft bus is placed in a large thermal vacuum chamber for TVAC testing.Footage courtesy of Lockheed Martin. || Footage of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft being shipped from Lockheed Martin Space Systems and loaded onto to a cargo plane for its flight to KSC, in May 2016. ||

On September 24, 2023, OSIRIS-REx will return its sample of asteroid Bennu to Earth. The sample return capsule will detach from the spacecraft, perform an entry, descent and landing sequence, and touch down at the UTTR facility in Utah. The Bennu samples will be taken to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas for curation, and will be studied by scientists around the world for decades to come. ||

The solar system today is an orderly place, much quieter than it was in its turbulent youth. How did our Sun, the Earth and the planets evolve from a whirlpool of gas, dust, and fiery droplets of molten rock? To answer this question, scientists are planning to visit asteroid Bennu (1999 RQ-36), which is composed of the same raw ingredients that created the planets. Bennu is a survivor of our solar system's early chaos, and following its journey will teach us a great deal about our own origins. This video is the official teaser for Bennu's Journey, a signature animation of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission; the full-length video will be released in November 2014. ||

What’s the best way get a sample of an asteroid? Play tag with it! That’s the plan for OSIRIS-REx, a NASA spacecraft that will approach the asteroid Bennu in 2018. The collection will be done with an instrument on board called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or, TAGSAM. Learn how it works in this video. || "Playing Tag With an Asteroid" is a video demonstrating how OSIRIS-REx will use it's TAGSAM instrument to get a sample of the asteroid Bennu.For complete transcript, click here. ||

OSIRIS-REx will visit a Near Earth asteroid called Bennu and return with samples that may hold clues to the origins of the solar system and perhaps life itself. It will also investigate the asteroid's chance of impacting Earth in 2182. For the mission, NASA has selected the team led by Principal Investigator Dr. Dante Lauretta from the University of Arizona. NASA GSFC will manage the mission and Lockheed Martin Space Systems will build the spacecraft. Arizona State University will supply the OTES instrument; NASA GSFC will supply the OVIRS instrument; the Canadian Space Agency will supply the OLA instrument; the University of Arizona will supply the OCAMS camera suite; Harvard/MIT will supply the REXIS instrument; and Flight Dynamics will supply the KinetX instrument. ||

THIS PAGE FEATURES OLDER CONTENT FOR OSIRIS-REx. NEWER CONTENT IS AVAILABLE ON THE OSIRIS-REx GALLERY. || An overview video of the OSIRIS-REx mission. || The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft apporaches asteroid Bennu. || Another view of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft approaching asteroid Bennu. || OSIRIS-REx performs remote sensing observations of asteroid Bennu. || OSIRIS-REx deploys its Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechansim (TAGSAM) instrument. || OSIRIS-REx collects a sample of asteroid Bennu. || Exterior view of OSIRIS-REx collecting a sample of asteroid Bennu with its Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM). ||

On February 15, 2013, a 45-meter asteroid called Duende (formerly 2012 DA14) passed within 28,000 kilometers of Earth - the closest approach on record for an object of this size. Although such Near-Earth Objects, or NEO's, cross our planet's orbit on a regular basis, only a handful are large enough to pose a threat. One of these objects is asteroid Bennu (formerly 1999 RQ36), a "leftover" from the formation of our solar system. In an effort to better understand NEO's and our planet's own origins, NASA is sending the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to asteroid Bennu to study the evolution of its orbit and retrieve a sample for return to Earth. ||

The OSIRIS-REx mission is going to an asteroid to collect and return a sample to Earth. OSIRIS-REx will launch in 2016, visit the asteroid from 2018 to 2021, and return a sample to Earth in 2023. Scientists will study the asteroid’s orbit, composition, and characteristics to answer questions about the early solar system, the building blocks of life, and potential impact hazards. Instead of traveling to (101955) 1999 RQ36, the asteroid’s provisional designation, we’re asking for help to find a new name. The Planetary Society, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, and the discovers at MIT’s Lincoln Lab will recommend selected names to the International Astronomical Union for selection.Contestants must choose a name, explain their choice, and submit the application on the Planetary Society website.The contest starts Tuesday, September 4, 2012. The deadline is Sunday, December 2, 2012.For contest rules, guidelines, and application visit: www.planetary.org/name ||

Not far from Earth, dark bodies of rock circle the sun in lonely orbits. These near Earth objects, or NEOs, are asteroids found outside the traditional belt between Mars and Jupiter. Protected from the gravitational tugs and tumbles that affect objects found closer to the gas giant, these asteroids may contain clues about the origins of the solar system. That's why experts from NASA and The University of Arizona want to send a research vehicle to collect a sample. That's OSIRIS. Once approved, the OSIRIS vehicle would leave Earth on a multi-year mission to map and collect samples from a particular NEO called RQ-36.In DESTINATION: ASTEROID, we look behind the scenes as a team of government scientists demonstrates for a visiting group of reporters how the mission will work. This short film explores the basics of the mission, including scientific goals, technical design plans, and a timeline of planned events. Imagination and invention meet in this spirited paean to NASA's legacy for great feats of exploration and discovery. Join us as we set our navigation systems to DESTINATION: ASTEROID. ||