Asteroid Sampler Placed Atop Atlas V for Launch

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was lifted into the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 and bolted into place on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V on Monday. The spacecraft, enclosed in a protective fairing, is to liftoff aboard the rocket on Sept. 8 to begin its mission to survey an asteroid called Bennu and then take a small sample from its surface and send that sample to Earth for analysis. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, delivered rocks and dust from asteroid Bennu to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023. The pristine material from Bennu – which the spacecraft collected from the asteroid's surface in 2020 – will offer generations of scientists a window into the time when the Sun and planets were forming about 4.5 billion years ago. After its sample delivery, OSIRIS-REx continued on to a new mission to asteroid Apophis, and was renamed OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer). Learn more about the OSIRIS-REx mission.