Tag: AV-067
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Photos: OSIRIS-REx prepped for encapsulation
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is about to be sealed inside the nose fairing of its Atlas 5 rocket booster for a seven-year voyage to asteroid Bennu and back to Earth on a mission to seek out clues to the origin of life and the chaotic early solar system. The solar-powered, 4,651-pound (2,110-kilogram) spacecraft is inside the…
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Video: Walk around NASA’s new asteroid sample probe
Take a walk around NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft less than three weeks before its Sept. 8 launch on top of an Atlas 5 rocket. Rich Kuhns, the mission’s program manager from Lockheed Martin, points out some of the major features on the probe. Lockheed Martin built the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and will oversee mission operators after it…
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Video: Preview of the OSIRIS-REx mission to sample an asteroid
Watch the pre-flight news conference that introduces NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on Sept. 8. The mission will reach Asteroid Bennu in 2018, capture a sample of the celestial body in 2020 and bring the specimen back to Earth in a special landing…
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Photos: Solar arrays attached to asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx spacecraft
At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, workers have finished the pre-launch assembly and fueling of OSIRIS-REx for the asteroid sample return spacecraft for liftoff Sept. 8. The probe will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket en route to Asteroid Bennu to capture a specimen for return to Earth. Inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing…
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Buildup of unusual launcher begins for NASA’s asteroid sample return mission
File photo of first Atlas 5-411 launch in 2006 with ASTRA 1KR satellite. Credit: Pat Corkery/Lockheed Martin CAPE CANAVERAL — It is a rocket like no other, a vehicle with a single solid-fuel booster mounted to its side, that will launch NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe next month to bring back a sample of Asteroid Bennu. The…
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Video: Asteroid sampler craft delivered to launch site
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the spacecraft that will grab a piece of Asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth, shipped to Kennedy Space Center from the Lockheed Martin production facilities in Denver on May 20 aboard an Air Force C-17. It was taken to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility to begin pre-launch processing. Liftoff atop a United…
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NASA probe that will make round trip to asteroid and back sent to launch base
Credit: OSIRIS-REx project CAPE CANAVERAL — Equipped with a robot arm, sample collector and return capsule, NASA’s asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx probe emerged from its pristine factory and flew to the launch site in Florida this evening. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will hurl the 4,650-pound spacecraft toward Asteroid Bennu on Sept. 8 for a…
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NASA probe that will make round trip to asteroid and back sent to launch base
Credit: OSIRIS-REx project CAPE CANAVERAL — Equipped with a robot arm, sample collector and return capsule, NASA’s asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx probe emerged from its pristine factory and flew to the launch site in Florida this evening. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will hurl the 4,650-pound spacecraft toward Asteroid Bennu on Sept. 8 for a…
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New lineup spelled out for upcoming Atlas 5 rocket launches from the Cape
The most recent Atlas 5 arcs to orbit over the next Delta 4-Heavy rocket. Credit: ULA CAPE CANAVERAL — The revised Atlas 5 rocket firing order includes two national security missions this summer before launching NASA’s daring asteroid sampler mission in September as originally planned. That’s the schedule the United Launch Alliance managers have devised…