WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

At Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, a crane lifts a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket first stage booster placing it in position at Space Launch Complex 41. With a Centaur upper stage, it will boost NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Targeted for liftoff Sept. 8, 2016, 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. The asteroid, Bennu, may hold clues to the origin of the solar system and the source of water and organic molecules found on Earth.