9 Aug 2021
The mission spent over two years with Bennu, gathering information about its size, shape, mass, and composition while monitoring its spin and orbital trajectory.
NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) Wednesday, Aug. 11, to discuss an important finding from NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft.
OSIRIS-REx spent over two years near the asteroid Bennu, which is a third of a mile (500 meters) wide. During that time, the spacecraft gathered information about Bennu’s size, shape, mass, and composition while monitoring its spin and orbital trajectory. Before leaving the near-Earth object May 10, 2021, the spacecraft scooped up a sample of rock and dust from the asteroid’s surface. OSIRIS-REx will return the sample to Earth Sept. 24, 2023, for further scientific study.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:
Participants in the briefing will be:
- Dante Lauretta, study co-author and OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson
- Davide Farnocchia, study lead author and scientist with the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California
- Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
- Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington
[Image]
Still depicting the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s trajectory around asteroid Bennu from the initial arrival in Dec 2018 through the final departure in April 2021. The trajectory is presented in a Sun Bennu North reference frame.