The findings from an independent review board suggest that NASA’s quest to return samples from Mars is riddled with challenges and seemingly impossible to accomplish under the current cost and schedule expectations.
NASA’s $800 million OSIRIS-REx mission launched to space in September 2016 with a simple, albeit ambitious, objective: travel to a distant asteroid and bring back a sample of it.
A mighty spacecraft is headed towards Earth, carrying rock and dust from a distant asteroid to hand off to eager scientists waiting to analyze the precious sample. The OSIRIS-REx mission recently fired its thrusters to set itself on a course towards the sample drop-off site, with its rendezvous on Earth scheduled for…
Rocket launches are expensive and laborious, but for decades they’ve been the price of doing business for space agencies hoping to get their latest satellite, telescope, or team of astronauts into the great blue yonder.
After landing on an asteroid nearly three years ago to scoop up a sample from its rocky surface, the OSIRIS-REx mission is finally in the homestretch. NASA is preparing for the special delivery of the rocky sample next month and the agency just pulled off the most realistic rehearsal for the big day.
The majority of the American public seems largely concerned with the threat of incoming asteroids, believing that NASA should prioritize the monitoring of rocky objects that could hit Earth over going to the Moon or Mars, according to a new survey.
For more than two years, NASA’s Perseverance rover has been roaming Mars, drilling for rock samples that may hold clues to ancient life on the Red Planet, but the six-wheeled robot can only travel so far. Luckily, the rover recently got some extra help from a river that once flowed on the surface of Mars.