OSIRIS-REx Mission records

OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is the National Aeronautical and Space Administration's first asteroid sample return mission. OSIRIS-REx seeks answers to the questions that are central to the human experience: Where did we come from? What is our destiny? Asteroids, the leftover debris from the solar system formation process, can answer these questions and teach us about the history of the sun and planets. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is traveling to Bennu, a carbonaceous asteroid whose regolith may record the earliest history of our solar system. Bennu may contain the molecular precursors to the origin of life and the Earth’s oceans. Bennu is also one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids, as it has a relatively high probability of impacting the Earth late in the 22nd century. OSIRIS-REx will determine Bennu’s physical and chemical properties, which will be critical to know in the event of an impact mitigation mission. Finally, asteroids like Bennu contain natural resources such as water, organics, and precious metals. In the future, these asteroids may one day fuel the exploration of the solar system by robotic and manned spacecraft.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta is the mission's principal investigator at the University of Arizona. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver is building the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx, and the University of Arizona also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. OSIRIS-REx is the National Aeronautical and Space Administrations’ first asteroid sample return mission operated by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Dante Lauretta is the principal investigator of the OSIRIS-Rex mission. He is a Professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He graduated with a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics and a B.A. in Oriental Studies with a focus in Japanese from the University of Arizona in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis in 1997. He began working at the University of Arizona in 2001. He is an expert in near-Earth asteroid formation and evolution and his main research focus is the formation and alteration of minerals in the solar nebula and on meteorite parent asteroids. He is also working on the application of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to geologic studies.