After a successful Mission Critical Design Review, the NASA team has been given permission to build the OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) with a launch date set in the fall of 2016. According to the plan, the OSIRIS-REx will arrive at Bennu in 2018 to spend an year long reconnaissance mission and will return back home with at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of asteroid samples in 2023.
“Successfully passing mission CDR is a major accomplishment, but the hard part is still in front of us — building, integrating and testing the flight system in support of a tight planetary launch window,” said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA.
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If successful, this mission will provide answers to some of the dying questions of science including what made life possible on Earth and the composition of the very early solar system.
[Via: NASA / Asteroid Mission]
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