[meteorite-list] OSIRIS-REx Will Visit Asteroid with New Name: Bennu

[Ron Baalke]

May 1, 2013

Dwayne Brown 
Headquarters, Washington                                  
202-358-1726 
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

Nancy Neal Jones 
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 
301-286-0039 
nancy.n.jones at nasa.gov 

RELEASE: 13-128

NASA SPACECRAFT WILL VISIT ASTEROID WITH NEW NAME

WASHINGTON -- An asteroid that will be explored by a NASA spacecraft 
has a new name, thanks to a third-grade student in North Carolina. 

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 
2016, rendezvous with Bennu in 2018 and return a sample of the 
asteroid to Earth in 2023. 

The name for the carbon-rich asteroid, designated in the scientific 
community as (101955) 1999 RQ36, is the winning entry in an 
international student contest. Nine-year-old Michael Puzio suggested 
the name because he imagined the Touch-and-Go Sample Mechanism 
(TAGSAM) arm and solar panels on OSIRIS-REx look like the neck and 
wings in drawings of Bennu, which Egyptians usually depicted as a 
gray heron. Puzio wrote the name suits the asteroid because it means 
"the ascending one," or "to shine." 

TAGSAM will collect a sample from Bennu and store it for return to 
Earth. The sample could hold clues to the origin of the solar system 
and the source of water and organic molecules that may have 
contributed to the development of life on Earth. The mission will be 
a vital part of NASA's plans to find, study, capture and relocate an 
asteroid for exploration by astronauts. NASA recently announced an 
asteroid initiative proposing a strategy to leverage human and 
robotic activities for the first human mission to an asteroid while 
also accelerating efforts to improve detection and characterization 
of asteroids. 

"There were many excellent entries that would be fitting names and 
provide us an opportunity to educate the world about the exciting 
nature of our mission," said Dante Lauretta of the University of 
Arizona in Tucson, a contest judge and the principal investigator of 
the OSIRIS-REx mission. "The information about the composition of 
Bennu and the nature of its orbit will enable us to explore our past 
and better understand our future." 

More than 8,000 students, all younger than 18, from more than 25 
countries worldwide entered the "Name that Asteroid!" contest last 
year. Each contestant submitted one name with a maximum of 16 
characters and a short explanation for the name. 

The contest was a partnership with The Planetary Society in Pasadena, 
Calif.; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory 
in Lexington, Mass.; and the University of Arizona. The partners 
assembled a panel to review the submissions and submit a top choice 
to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Committee for Small 
Body Nomenclature. The IAU is the governing body that officially 
names a celestial object. 

"Bennu struck a chord with many of us right away," said Bruce Betts, 
director of projects for the Planetary Society and a contest judge. 
"While there were many great entries, the similarity between the 
image of the heron and the TAGSAM arm of OSIRIS-REx was a clever 
choice. The parallel with asteroids as both bringers of life and as 
destructive forces in the solar system also created a great 
opportunity to teach." 

The Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Program survey team 
discovered the asteroid in 1999, early in NASA's Near-Earth Objects 
Observation Program, which detects and catalogs near-Earth asteroids 
and comets. 

"The samples of Bennu returned by OSIRIS-REx will allow scientists to 
peer into the origin of the solar system and gain insights into the 
origin of life," said Jason Dworkin, an OSIRIS-REx project scientist 
at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 

Goddard will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, 
and safety and mission assurance. The University of Arizona is the 
principal investigator institution. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of 
Denver will build the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in 
NASA's New Frontiers Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in 
Huntsville, Ala., manages New Frontiers for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate in Washington. 

For more information on OSIRIS-REx, visit: 

http://osiris-rex.lpl.arizona.edu/ 

For information about the contest, visit 

http://planetary.org/name 

For more information about NASA's other asteroid-related missions, 
visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov 
	
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