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This Week in NASA History: OSIRIS-Rex Launches – Sept. 8, 2016

illustration of spacecraft and asteroid golden light
This week in 2016, OSIRIS-Rex — the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer — spacecraft was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

This week in 2016, OSIRIS-Rex — the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer — spacecraft was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. OSIRIS-Rex 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. In this illustration, OSIRIS-Rex approaches the asteroid Bennu. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in the agency’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage. (NASA)