Jane Edwards
NASA has given the Lockheed Martin-built Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer spacecraft the go-ahead to launch on Sept. 8 after the space vehicle passed a launch readiness evaluation Tuesday, Space News reported.
Jeff Foust writes the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida onboard the United Launch Alliance-developed Atlas 5 rocket to collect samples of the Bennu asteroid for further research.
Officials with NASA and ULA said at a Tuesday briefing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida that the explosion of the SpaceX-built Falcon 9 rocket prior to the rocket’s static fire test on Thursday would not have an effect on the OSIRIS-REx mission, Foust reports.
NASA expects OSIRIS-REx to reach Bennu in August 2018 and then collect rock samples by mid-2020 through the use of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism sampling tool, according to the report.
The report added OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to reach Earth by September 2023 and land in Utah with the collected rock samples.
