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OSIRIS-REx Delivers NASA’s First Asteroid Sample to Earth

A black capsule sits in the desert surrounded by scattered plants.

The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

Credits: NASA/Keegan Barber

On Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023 the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft capped its 7-year mission with the successful deposit of a pristine sample of surface material from the asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert. Now in a specially built clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the sample is being carefully curated before it is shared with researchers around the world – and saved for study by future generations. Within this sample, which is billions of years old, scientists will explore the origin of our solar system.