Discovering the origins of the solar system

• Mission Type: Sample return

• Destination: Asteroid Bennu

• Sample Delivered: Sept. 24, 2023

• Objective: Collect asteroid sample and deliver it to Earth

With an ASU-built instrument aboard, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivered safely to Earth a sample of the asteroid Bennu, which may hold clues about the origin of life. Bennu contains rocks that date to the earliest epoch of the solar system, and the mission delivered samples of these “fossils” that date back 4 billion years.

Beyond scientific discovery, there’s another reason NASA keeps a close eye on Bennu. It has an orbit around the sun that crosses Earth’s orbit, posing a small risk it could collide with our planet in the coming centuries. Among the “near-Earth objects” (including comets) that NASA tracks, Bennu tops the list of potentially hazardous space rocks.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft carried a number of important scientific instruments, including OTES, the OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer, the first space instrument built entirely on the ASU campus. OTES was used to map Bennu’s mineralogy and surface temperature, data that helped mission scientists choose a site to collect a surface sample to return to Earth.

This artist's concept shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft contacting the asteroid Bennu with its Touch-And-Go Sample Arm Mechanism, or TAGSAM. Image by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center