OSIRIS-REx Checkouts Underway

Members of the processing team guide NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft into position on a work stand inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft is being prepared for its upcoming launch, targeted for Sept. 8 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. OSIRIS-REx stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security – Regolith Explorer. This will be the first U.S. mission to sample an asteroid, retrieve at least two ounces of surface material and return it to Earth for study. The asteroid, Bennu, may hold clues to the origin of the solar system and the source of water and organic molecules found on Earth.

Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux