After spending about 18 months in orbit around Bennu, OSIRIS-REx will fly close enough to the asteroid to give it a quick high-five with its sampler arm. Advertisement.

Watch: NASA's OSIRIS-REx returns to Earth from the asteroid Bennu What is Bennu? First discovered in 1999, Bennu is believed to be part of a larger asteroid that collided with another space rock ...

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to return samples of Asteroid Bennu to Earth. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ...

OSIRIS-REx fired braking rockets to slow its speed to match Bennu's. It orbited the asteroid and began a months-long survey in October 2020. Extensive mapping, from an altitude of about 3 miles ...

The descent from the edge of the atmosphere to the desert sands took under 10 minutes in total to end a 4 billion-mile journey. The $1 billion OSIRIS-REx mission launched in 2016, arrived at Bennu ...

In October 2020, NASA’s OSRISIS-REx spacecraft made history by touching down on the asteroid Bennu and grabbing a sample of rock and debris. New analysis of this encounter has revealed the probe ...

OSIRIS-REx then immediately fired up its thrusters to back away from Bennu. The spacecraft’s sampling head touched Bennu’s surface for approximately 6 seconds before retreating.

Asteroid Bennu is the space rock with the highest known probability of hitting Earth in the next 200 years. NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will help us protect ourselves.

OSIRIS-REx also discovered that Bennu’s orbit is changing. A “day” on Bennu lasts a short 4 hours and 17.8 minutes. But that’s enough to heat up the asteroid’s dayside.

So in exactly 999 days from this moment, our launch window will open up and OSIRIS-REx will be on his journey into the inner solar system to asteroid Bennu to get his treasure and bring it back to ...

When the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft closely approached Bennu three years ago, it extended a Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism head, or TAGSAM, toward the asteroid and fired a blast of nitrogen gas.