The full journey of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx: from launch to the return of asteroid sample

It only takes a considered gaze up at our sky to be met with multiple, existential questions: how was our planet created? What lies beyond our Galaxy? Will we ever know how life on Earth began?

With modern science continually making new discoveries and theories, we are closer than ever before to offering answers to these questions. New experiments and missions are happening in the here and now, marking monumental breakthroughs in science, that will benefit generations to come.

One such mission, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, reached a successful milestone last month, with the landing of a small capsule on Earth, containing a record-breaking amount of asteroid material which may hold tangible evidence of how our Solar System developed, and how life originated on this planet.

The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) mission, first launched in 2016, successfully completed its first objective after seven years: to reach and map asteroid ‘101955 Bennu’, believed to be a “time capsule” from the birth of our Solar System, and return a sample of the asteroid back to Earth for study.