The First Asteroid Sample Collected in Space by NASA to Arrive on Earth this Sunday

Release – The first asteroid sample collected in space by NASA will arrive on Earth Sunday, Sept. 24, and there are multiple events leading up to its landing.

NASA’s live coverage of the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer) capsule landing starts at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. MDT) and will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Watch online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

In addition to the English broadcast, NASA will stream coverage of the landing beginning at 10 a.m. EDT (8 a.m. MDT) in Spanish on X, Facebook, and YouTube.

A post-landing news conference will occur about 5 p.m. EDT (3 p.m. MDT), when the sample capsule arrives at a temporary clean room on the military range. Coverage will air on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx.

Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing.

Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.

Curation for OSIRIS-REx, including processing the sample when it arrives on Earth, will take place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission.

OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

To learn more about the asteroid sample recovery mission visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex