OSIRIS-REX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security - Regolith Explorer)

The curation team processing NASA's asteroid Bennu sample has removed and collected 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of rocks and dust from the sampler hardware – surpassing the agency's goal of bringing at least 60 grams to Earth. And the good news is, there's still more of NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith …

Making stereoscopic images of asteroid Bennu was not part of the brief of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission; but we civilians, Claudia Manzoni and myself, were invited by mission principal investigator Dante Lauretta to join the science team and find opportunities for stereoscopy in the wealth of visual data acquired by the spacecraft's cameras at Bennu. To …

As the astromaterials curation team at NASA's Johnson Space Center continues to collect the bonus asteroid Bennu particles located outside the OSIRIS-REx TAGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) head, they've also completed additional steps toward disassembly and reveal of the bulk asteroid sample inside the head. Curation scientists removed 14 circular witness plates from the top …

After years of anticipation and hard work by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) team, a capsule of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu returned to Earth on Sept. 24 in a targeted area of the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City. …