posted 05-25-2011 03:18 PM               

NASA to launch science mission to asteroid in 2016

NASA will launch a spacecraft to an asteroid in 2016 and use a robotic arm to pluck samples that could better explain our solar system's formation and how life began. The mission, called Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth.

"This is a critical step in meeting the objectives outlined by President Obama to extend our reach beyond low-Earth orbit and explore into deep space," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. "It's robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations."

NASA selected OSIRIS-REx after reviewing three concept study reports for new scientific missions, which also included a sample return mission from the far side of the moon and a mission to the surface of Venus.

Asteroids are leftovers formed from the cloud of gas and dust -- the solar nebula -- that collapsed to form our sun and the planets about 4.5 billion years ago. As such, they contain the original material from the solar nebula, which can tell us about the conditions of our solar system's birth.

After traveling four years, OSIRIS-REx will approach the primitive, near Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36 in 2020. Once within three miles of the asteroid, the spacecraft will begin six months of comprehensive surface mapping. The science team then will pick a location from where the spacecraft's arm will take a sample. The spacecraft gradually will move closer to the site, and the arm will extend to collect more than two ounces of material for return to Earth in 2023. The mission, excluding the launch vehicle, is expected to cost approximately $800 million.

The sample will be stored in a capsule that will land at Utah's Test and Training Range in 2023. The capsule's design will be similar to that used by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which returned the world's first comet particles from comet Wild 2 in 2006. The OSIRIS-REx sample capsule will be taken to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The material will be removed and delivered to a dedicated research facility following stringent planetary protection protocol. Precise analysis will be performed that cannot be duplicated by spacecraft-based instruments.

RQ36 is approximately 1,900 feet in diameter or roughly the size of five football fields. The asteroid, little altered over time, is likely to represent a snapshot of our solar system's infancy. The asteroid also is likely rich in carbon, a key element in the organic molecules necessary for life. Organic molecules have been found in meteorite and comet samples, indicating some of life's ingredients can be created in space. Scientists want to see if they also are present on RQ36.

"This asteroid is a time capsule from the birth of our solar system and ushers in a new era of planetary exploration," said Jim Green, director, NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "The knowledge from the mission also will help us to develop methods to better track the orbits of asteroids."

The mission will accurately measure the "Yarkovsky effect" for the first time. The effect is a small push caused by the sun on an asteroid, as it absorbs sunlight and re-emits that energy as heat. The small push adds up over time, but it is uneven due to an asteroid's shape, wobble, surface composition and rotation. For scientists to predict an Earth-approaching asteroid's path, they must understand how the effect will change its orbit. OSIRIS-REx will help refine RQ36's orbit to ascertain its trajectory and devise future strategies to mitigate possible Earth impacts from celestial objects.

Michael Drake of the University of Arizona in Tucson is the mission's principal investigator. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft. The OSIRIS-REx payload includes instruments from the University of Arizona, Goddard, Arizona State University in Tempe and the Canadian Space Agency. NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., the Langley Research Center in Hampton Va., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., also are involved. The science team is composed of numerous researchers from universities, private and government agencies.

This is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. The first, New Horizons, was launched in 2006. It will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in July 2015, then target another Kuiper Belt object for study. The second mission, Juno, will launch in August to become the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter from pole to pole and study the giant planet's atmosphere and interior. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

posted 09-04-2012 11:43 AM               

NASA announces asteroid naming contest for students

Students worldwide have an opportunity to name an asteroid from which an upcoming NASA mission will return the first samples to Earth.

Scheduled to launch in 2016, the mission is called the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx). Samples returned from the primitive surface of the near-Earth asteroid currently called (101955) 1999 RQ36 could hold clues to the origin of the solar system and organic molecules that may have seeded life on Earth. NASA also is planning a crewed mission to an asteroid by 2025. A closer scientific study of asteroids will provide context and help inform this mission.

"Because the samples returned by the mission will be available for study for future generations, it is possible the person who names the asteroid will grow up to study the regolith we return to Earth," said Jason Dworkin, OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The competition is open to students under age 18 from anywhere in the world. Each contestant can submit one name, up to 16 characters long. Entries must include a short explanation and rationale for the name. Submissions must be made by an adult on behalf of the student. The contest deadline is Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012.

The contest is a partnership with The Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif.; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington; and the University of Arizona in Tucson.

A panel will review proposed asteroid names. First prize will be awarded to the student who recommends a name that is approved by the International Astronomical Union Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature.

"Our mission will be focused on this asteroid for more than a decade," said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for the mission at the University of Arizona. "We look forward to having a name that is easier to say than (101955) 1999 RQ36."

The asteroid was discovered in 1999 by the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. LINEAR is part of NASA's Near Earth Observation Program in Washington, which detects and catalogs near-Earth asteroids and comets. The asteroid has an average diameter of approximately one-third of a mile (500 meters).

"We are excited to have discovered the minor planet that will be visited by the OSIRIS-REx mission and to be able to engage students around the world to suggest a name for 1999 RQ36," said Grant Stokes, head of the Aerospace Division at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and principal investigator for the LINEAR program.

The asteroid received its designation of (101955) 1999 RQ36 from the Minor Planet Center, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. The center assigns an initial alphanumeric designation to any newly discovered asteroid once certain criteria are met to determine its orbit.

"Asteroids are just cool and 1999 RQ36 deserves a cool name!" said Bill Nye, chief executive officer for The Planetary Society. "Engaging kids around the world in a naming contest will get them tuned in to asteroids and asteroid science."

posted 05-01-2013 10:22 AM               

Nine-Year-Old Names Asteroid Target of NASA Mission in Competition Run by The Planetary Society

Asteroid (101955) 1999 RQ36 now has the much friendlier name "Bennu," thanks to a 3rd-grade student from North Carolina. That's good, because the asteroid now called Bennu will soon have a visitor. NASA's Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is scheduled to launch in 2016, visit Bennu in 2018, and return a sample of the asteroid to Earth in 2023.

The name is the winning entry in an international student contest. Michael Puzio, a nine-year-old in North Carolina, suggested the name because he imagined the Touch-and-Go Sample Mechanism (TAGSAM) arm and solar panels on OSIRIS-REx look like the like neck and wings in drawings of Bennu, which Egyptians usually depicted as a gray heron.

More than 8,000 students from dozens of countries around the world entered the Name that Asteroid! competition. The contest was a partnership among the University of Arizona; The Planetary Society; and the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory.

Contestants submitted one name along with a short explanation for their choice. Names were required to comply with naming guidelines from the Minor Planet Center. The competition partners assembled a Review Panel to select the winner and send the winner's name to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Committee for Small Body Nomenclature, which officially approves the name.

Bruce Betts, Director of Projects for the Planetary Society and a judge in the competition, commented on the new name: "The name 'Bennu' struck a chord with many of us right away. While there were many great entries, the similarity between the image of the heron and the TAGSAM arm of OSIRIS-REx was a clever choice. The parallel with asteroids as both bringers of life and as destructive forces in the solar system also created a great opportunity to teach about planetary science."

"The process of choosing a name was much harder than we first imagined it would be", said Dante Lauretta, Principal Investigator of the OSIRIS-REx mission and another of the judges. "There were many excellent entries that would be fitting names and provide us an opportunity to educate the world about the exciting nature of our mission."

When he learned he had won the contest, Puzio said, "It's great! I'm the first kid I know that named part of the solar system!"

The heron-TAGSAM parallel wasn't the only similarity that struck the judges. The god Bennu was commonly associated with the gods Atum, the primeval deity, and Re, the Sun god. Astronomers think that the OSIRIS-REx target asteroid is a primitive object that dates back to the creation of the Solar System because earthly analogues for the asteroid Bennu are carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, which have compositions that are very similar to that of the Sun. In fact, our own Solar System was "reborn" from the remnants of stellar explosions more than 4.5 billion years ago, so origins, rebirth and duality are all part of the story of this asteroid.

Puzio's entry was one of 39 semifinalists. Semifinalists ranged in age from 5 to 17 and came from the USA, Brazil, France, India, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. For more about the contest, and the finalists and semifinalists and their entries, including photos, visit: planetary.org/name.

The LINEAR survey team discovered the asteroid in 1999, early in NASA's Near Earth Observation Program, which detects and catalogs near-Earth asteroids and comets.

When an asteroid is first discovered, it is given a provisional designation like "1999 RQ36." The first four digits tell you what year it was discovered. The last four characters tell you when in that year it was discovered. 1999 RQ36 was the 916th object observed in the first half of September 1999. Once the asteroid's orbit is precisely known, it is then issued an official sequential number; 1999 RQ36 was the 101,955th asteroid to receive a number, so it is now formally known as 101955. Only about 5 percent of numbered asteroids have been given names, and Bennu is now one of these.

posted 05-17-2013 08:43 AM               

NASA's Asteroid Sample Return Mission Moves into Development

NASA's first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016.

The Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) passed a confirmation review Wednesday called Key Decision Point (KDP)-C. NASA officials reviewed a series of detailed project assessments and authorized the spacecraft's continuation into the development phase.

OSIRIS-REx will rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in 2018 and return a sample of it to Earth in 2023.

"Successfully passing KDP-C is a major milestone for the project," said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "This means NASA believes we have an executable plan to return a sample from Bennu. It now falls on the project and its development team members to execute that plan."

Bennu could hold clues to the origin of the solar system. OSIRIS-REx will map the asteroid's global properties, measure non-gravitational forces and provide observations that can be compared with data obtained by telescope observations from Earth. OSIRIS-REx will collect a minimum of 2 ounces (60 grams) of surface material.

"The entire OSIRIS-REx team has worked very hard to get to this point," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "We have a long way to go before we arrive at Bennu , but I have every confidence when we do, we will have built a supremely capable system to return a sample of this primitive asteroid."

The mission will be a vital part of NASA's plans to find, study, capture and relocate an asteroid for exploration by astronauts. NASA recently announced an asteroid initiative proposing a strategy to leverage human and robotic activities for the first human mission to an asteroid while also accelerating efforts to improve detection and characterization of asteroids.