NASA to Hold Live Stream Event for OSIRIS-REx Approach of Asteroid Bennu

After the success of the InSight mission landing on Mars earlier this week, NASA is about to broadcast yet another live stream of a craft approach. But this time, the stream will be of the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, or the OSIRIS-REx craft that is on its way to surveying an actual asteroid traveling through space.

The OSIRIS-REx craft launched more than two years ago, in September of 2016, and has been traveling to the asteroid, Bennu, since then. It's expected to finally make its approach Monday at noon EST.

NASA will have coverage of the approach beginning at 11:45 a.m. EST and continue until 12:15 p.m. There will be five people involved in the pre-approach coverage including moderator Michelle Thaller of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

OSIRIS-REx-EGA-Beauty-Shot
This artist’s concept shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft passing by Earth. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona

Thaller will moderate a conversation with Rich Burns, the project manager, Heather Enos, the deputy principal investigator, Mark Fisher of Lockheed Martin Space, and Coralie Adam of KinetX Inc. Space Navigation and Flight Dynamics.

Once the craft rendezvous with the asteroid it will take it 20 minutes to communicate with the teams back on Earth. The sample collection the craft conducts while near the surface will be some of the most important information the craft communicated the millions of miles back to Earth.

The OSIRIS-REx website allows users to track the craft's location and see how far it's traveled, how far it is from Earth, how close it is to Bennu and more. Once it arrives it will be surveying the asteroid and sending that information back to Earth to lend insights into the makeup of the asteroid.

There are five goals for the craft its already accomplished most of the first one, the approach. "The primary goals of Approach are to visually locate Bennu for the first time, survey the surrounding area for potential hazards, and collect enough imagery of Bennu for scientists to generate a detailed shape model of the asteroid, assign a coordinate system, and understand its spin state," according to NASA.

The second goal is the "preliminary survey" during which the craft will make its arrival and begin operations around the asteroid. During those operations, it will make passes over different spots on the asteroid to make estimations about the mass, the spin state and the shape.

Later goals like Orbital A and B, as well as and two detailed surveys are also scheduled before the "Recon phase" and then "rehearsal" and "tag" or touch-and-go.

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About the writer


Nina was a breaking news reporter. She previously worked at Business Insider, The Boston Globe, and Boston.com.

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