Spaceq

The first results are in from the OSIRIS-REx mission and they couldn't please researchers more. Asteroid Bennu is everything they had hoped it would be based on the data obtained so far. It has also provided a few surprises.The topic of today’s SpaceQ podcast is the NASA led OSIRIS-REx mission with its ongoing multi-year mission to rendezvous, examine and sample asteroid Bennu. The acronym OSIRIS-REx stands for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer mission.The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched on September 8th, 2016. Canada is participating in the mission by providing the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter or OLA, which will create a 3-D map of asteroid Bennu’s shape along with helping with navigation. The mission will continue until March 2021 when the spacecraft will return to Earth arriving 2 1/2 years later in September 2023. At that point the sample return capsule will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and land in Utah where it will be collected and analyzed by resea