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NASA is mere months away from the launch of the starting time mission to collect samples from an asteroid and render them to World. Before the OSIRIS-REx mission can get off the footing, it needs to be thoroughly tested, and that's what manufacturer Lockheed Martin is about to begin. The spacecraft is fully assembled, and so information technology's time to run into if it will stand up to the rigors of space travel.

OSIRIS-King stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (take a wild guess whether the proper name or acronym was decided on offset). The goal of the mission will exist to encounter an asteroid called 101955 Bennu in orbit of the sun. This object is about 500 meters in diameter and is considered a potential World impactor. OSIRIS-Male monarch will ease up alongside the asteroid to collect a sample earlier heading home.

That's easier said than done, of course. Bennu is whipping effectually the sun at more than than 63,000 mph, and OSIRIS-REx needs to match its course and speed exactly to become into position. Information technology'southward non going to state on the asteroid, but will extend a robotic arm to touch the surface. A blast of nitrogen gas volition disrupt the dust and rocks on the asteroid and allow the arm to collect at least 60 grams of textile before retracting. At that place's plenty that could go wrong with such an aggressive mission, so the focus correct now is to make sure the spacecraft is as reliable equally possible.

OSIRIS-REx_artist_rendetion

OSIRIS-Rex is beingness transported to Lockheed'south Waterton Canyon facility in Colorado for five months of rigorous tests. While at that place, information technology will exist exposed to conditions like those it will experience while being blasted into space atop an Atlas V rocket. It volition be subjected to vibration, shock, and electromagnetic interference. The spacecraft volition as well be placed in a vacuum chamber and exposed to extremely cold and hot temperatures to simulate the trip to Bennu.

If this final phase of assembly goes well, OSIRIS-REx will be shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Eye in May where information technology volition undergo final preparations for launch. The mission will get nether way in September 2016 when OSIRIS-Rex lifts off. It will take almost two years to reach Bennu, and it won't exist back on Earth until 2023.

The samples collected from Bennu could help scientists larn more than about the formation of the solar system. Asteroids like Bennu are idea to be like time capsules from the early solar arrangement, and you only can't acquire as much from them later on they've been scorched in the atmosphere. If you lot want a pristine sample, yous have to build a probe like OSIRIS-Male monarch to go and get ane. The mission is expected to cost $800 one thousand thousand overall, simply OSIRIS-Male monarch itself accounts for just $183 meg of that.