Mon, May 20, 2013
Launch Planned For 2016, With Samples Returning In 2023
NASA's first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016. The Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) passed a confirmation review Wednesday called Key Decision Point (KDP)-C. NASA officials reviewed a series of detailed project assessments and authorized the spacecraft's continuation into the development phase.
OSIRIS-REx will rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in 2018 and return a sample of it to Earth in 2023.
"Successfully passing KDP-C is a major milestone for the project," said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This means NASA believes we have an executable plan to return a sample from Bennu. It now falls on the project and its development team members to execute that plan."
Bennu could hold clues to the origin of the solar system. OSIRIS-REx will map the asteroid's global properties, measure non-gravitational forces and provide observations that can be compared with data obtained by telescope observations from Earth. OSIRIS-REx will collect a minimum of 2 ounces of surface material.
"The entire OSIRIS-REx team has worked very hard to get to this point," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "We have a long way to go before we arrive at Bennu, but I have every confidence when we do, we will have built a supremely capable system to return a sample of this primitive asteroid."
The mission will be a vital part of NASA's plans to find, study, capture and relocate an asteroid for exploration by astronauts. NASA recently announced an asteroid initiative proposing a strategy to leverage human and robotic activities for the first human mission to an asteroid while also accelerating efforts to improve detection and characterization of asteroids.
(Image provided by NASA)
More News
Aero Linx: International Flying Farmers IFF is a not-for-profit organization started in 1944 by farmers who were also private pilots. We have members all across the United States a>[...]
From 2017 (YouTube Version): Remembrances Of An Israeli Air Force Test Pilot Early in 2016, ANN contributor Maxine Scheer traveled to Israel, where she had the opportunity to sit d>[...]
"We renegotiated what our debt restructuring is on a lot of our debts, mostly with the family. Those debts are going to be converted into equity..." Source: Excerpts from a short v>[...]
Also: B-29 Superfortress Reunion, FAA Wants Controllers, Spirit Airlines Pulls Back, Gogo Galileo Van's Aircraft posted a short video recapping the goings-on around their reorganiz>[...]
Chart Supplement US A flight information publication designed for use with appropriate IFR or VFR charts which contains data on all airports, seaplane bases, and heliports open to >[...]