Seven years and 4 billion miles after its launch, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has successfully dropped off a capsule containing a precious sample of one near-Earth asteroid — and is now on course to rendezvous with another one in 2029.
Rocket thrusters built at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility in Redmond, Wash., have been guiding the bus-sized probe every step of the way.
Today marked the climax of OSIRIS-REx — which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. The billion-dollar mission is designed to let scientists examine pristine stuff from a space rock that could shed light on the chemistry of the primordial solar system, and give them a better idea of the resources that could someday be gleaned from asteroids.
