Tag: OSIRIS-REx
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Video: Atlas/OSIRIS-REx pre-launch and mission science press briefings
Watch the pre-launch news conference from the Kennedy Space Center to preview the flight of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return spacecraft aboard a ULA Atlas 5 rocket on Sept. 8. The briefing participants are: Geoffrey Yoder, acting associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of…
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Preview: NASA craft launches Thursday seeking the seeds of life on asteroid
An artist’s concept of OSIRIS-REx at Asteroid Bennu. Credit: Lockheed Martin CAPE CANAVERAL — What began as a concept scribbled on a cocktail napkin in a Tucson bar 12 years ago — sending a spacecraft to an asteroid and retrieving a pristine sample to bring back to Earth for study — becomes reality Thursday with…
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Weather forecast favorable for Atlas 5 to launch NASA asteroid probe Thursday
File photo of Atlas 5. Credit: United Launch Alliance CAPE CANAVERAL — Prognosticators are predicting favorable weather conditions to launch an Atlas 5 rocket Thursday and send NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its interplanetary journey to interrogate an asteroid and collect a surface sample for return to Earth. The Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron at Cape…
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Asteroid probe apparently unharmed in nearby SpaceX explosion, passes its FRR
The encapsulated OSIRIS-REx was lifted into the VIF on Monday. Credit: NASA-KSC/Dimitri Gerondidakis CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA says initial checks show no damage to the Atlas 5 rocket or the agency’s asteroid-bound OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that stood within the Vertical Integration Facility just a mile away from the SpaceX explosion Thursday. The United Launch Alliance vehicle…
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Animation of OSIRIS-REx mission from liftoff to return home
This NASA animation depicts the OSIRIS-REx mission beginning with liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral on Sept. 8, embarking on a voyage to rendezvous and orbit Asteroid Bennu. The spacecraft will use its cameras, laser and spectrometer instruments to map the mountain-size rock starting in late 2018 before performing…
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Probe hoisted aboard launcher to leave Earth next week on asteroid adventure
File photo of Atlas payload lift and mate. Credit: United Launch Alliance CAPE CANAVERAL — NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft today moved a step closer to starting a voyage to explore an uncharted world in our solar system — the mountain-sized Asteroid Bennu — by joining the booster rocket that will propel it from Earth next week.…
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Atlas 5 rocket rehearses countdown for upcoming launch to Asteroid Bennu
The venting Atlas 5 during today’s WDR. Credit: NASA-KSC/Kim Shiflett CAPE CANAVERAL — Running through a practice countdown to check systems before launching a NASA sample-return probe to Asteroid Bennu in exactly two weeks, an Atlas 5 successfully completed its Wet Dress Rehearsal today. The United Launch Alliance rocket will propel the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on…
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Photos: Atlas 5 rocket assembled for launch of asteroid sample return probe
At Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility, adjacent to the Complex 41 launch pad, workers with United Launch Alliance stacked the Atlas 5 rocket that will propel NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its voyage to Asteroid Bennu. On Monday, Aug. 8, the first stage was erected onto the mobile launch platform parked inside the assembly building. A…
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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…