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University Of Arizona’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Gets Last Instrument

OSIRIS-REx
(Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
An artist's rendering of OSIRIS-REx.

A student-built experiment designed for the University of Arizona’s mission to an asteroid is now part of the spacecraft.

Students and faculty from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology competed for the chance to have their experiment fly on the OSIRIS-Rex mission.

Their spectrometer will identify mineral and chemical elements on the asteroid called Bennu. OSIRIS-Rex’s primary goal is to get a sample from the asteroid and return it to earth for study.

The instrument will observe solar X-rays and their interaction with the asteroid’s surface material. The surface elements produce unique characteristics in response to the X-rays’ energy.

The spacecraft is being assembled in Denver. It will move to Cape Canaveral in May and launch in September. The sample will return to earth in 2023.

More About The Mission

More OSIRIS-REx Coverage

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Sara Hammond was a reporter at Arizona Public Media in Tucson from 2015 to 2018.