Latest Dante Lauretta Stories
[WATCH VIDEO: OSIRIS-REx To Investigate Asteroid Bennu] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA said it is moving forward with its plan to send a spacecraft to an asteroid to bring back a sample to Earth. The space agency's Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission to sample asteroid Bennu is moving ahead in preparation for its launch in 2016. After launch, OSIRIS-REx will rendezvous with the asteroid in...
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) passed a confirmation review Wednesday called Key Decision Point (KDP)-C. NASA officials reviewed a series of detailed project assessments and...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA's Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft, scheduled to be launched in 2016, will touch down on an asteroid in 2018. Then, after collecting samples from the surface, the probe will rocket back to Earth, returning its find to be studied by terrestrial scientists by 2023. But project leaders noticed that the asteroid in question, asteroid (101955) 1999...
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An asteroid that will be explored by a NASA spacecraft has a new name, thanks to a third-grade student in North Carolina. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) NASA's Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will visit the asteroid now called Bennu, named after an important ancient Egyptian avian deity. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to launch in...
University of Arizona Scientists at the University of Arizona welcome President Barack Obama's NASA budget proposal, rolled out today, and specifically its focus on gaining a better understanding of asteroids that could potentially harm Earth. The UA has a unique depth of capabilities and expertise that can help inform such missions and ensure their success. The UA is operating the most prolific ground-based system for identifying near-Earth asteroids, and it is tasked by NASA with...
Watch the Video: NASA Announces Asteroid Naming Contest Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA is opening up an opportunity for students to help name an asteroid the space agency will be gathering samples from and returning back to Earth. The Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is scheduled to launch in 2016. During the mission, a spacecraft will land on the near-earth asteroid currently called 1999...
WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Students worldwide have an opportunity to name an asteroid from which an upcoming NASA mission will return the first samples to Earth. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Scheduled to launch in 2016, the mission is called the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx). Samples returned from the primitive surface of the near-Earth asteroid currently...
Every six years, asteroid 1999 RQ 36 nears the Earth - by cosmic standards - and researchers are launching a global observation campaign to learn as much as possible in preparation for the OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S.-led mission to bring back a sample of pristine asteroid material. Astronomers working on the U.S.' first asteroid-sample return mission – the NASA mission named OSIRIS-REx – have begun a months-long observing campaign that is the last chance to study their target...
By Daniel Stolte, University of ArizonaThe discovery of minerals requiring liquid water for their formation challenges the paradigm of comets as "dirty snowballs" frozen in time.For the first time, scientists have found convincing evidence for the presence of liquid water in a comet, shattering the current paradigm that comets never get warm enough to melt the ice that makes up the bulk of their material."Current thinking suggests that it is impossible to form liquid water inside of a...
The X PRIZE Foundation and Google Inc. announced the first 10 teams in the race for the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a robotic race to the moon for $30 million in prizes, at a news conference in Mountain View, Calif., today.The University of Arizona has partnered with Carnegie Mellon University and Raytheon Missile Systems as Team Astrobotic in a bid to win the first private moon race. The UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering are the major players...
