Johnson Space Center cleanroom team

The image shows five scientists covered head to toe in white suits, with long robes, and face coverings. One person has his back to the viewer, and is crouching in the left bottom corner. The rest are standing in a circle around a large metallic object, a mock sample capsule. The capsule is on a cart in the middle of the room. Inside this cleanroom everything is white, including the neon lights on the ceiling. The scientists are practicing opening a capsule with asteroid samples in it. The real capsule with samples from asteroid Bennu, is on its way to Earth now.

The cleanroom team practices disassembling the sample capsule at Lockheed Martin. Team members pictured (clockwise): Mike Kaye (Lockheed Martin), Ryan Paquette (Lockheed Martin), Wayland Connelly (NASA), Nicole Lunning (NASA), and Levi Hanish (Lockheed Martin). Credit: Lockheed Martin.

About the OSIRIS-REx Mission

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.