{"id":137138,"date":"2023-09-21T14:28:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T18:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=137138"},"modified":"2023-09-27T09:24:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T13:24:51","slug":"the-long-journey-of-nasas-osiris-rex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/the-long-journey-of-nasas-osiris-rex\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long Journey of NASA\u2019S OSIRIS-REx"},"content":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been seven years since NASA\u2019s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas rocket, bound for an asteroid 200 million miles from Earth.<\/p>\n
The unmanned spacecraft was tasked with rendezvousing with asteroid Bennu to retrieve a sample from its surface and return it to Earth \u2014 a first-of-its-kind mission for the United States.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s expected to happen on Sept. 24, when OSIRIS-REx will jettison a sample capsule containing loose rocks and soil from Bennu that \u2014 if all goes according to plan \u2014 will deploy parachutes and touch down in the Utah Test and Training Range.<\/p>\n