[meteorite-list] NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission Passes Critical Milestone

[Ron Baalke]

March 31, 2015
     
NASA's OSIRIS-REx Mission Passes Critical Milestone

NASA's groundbreaking science mission to retrieve a sample from an ancient 
space rock has moved closer to fruition. The Origins Spectral Interpretation 
Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has 
passed a critical milestone in its path towards launch and is officially 
authorized to transition into its next phase.

Key Decision Point-D (KDP-D) occurs after the project has completed a series 
of independent reviews that cover the technical health, schedule and cost of 
the project. The milestone represents the official transition from the 
mission's development stage to delivery of systems, testing and integration 
leading to launch. During this part of the mission's life cycle, known as 
Phase D, the spacecraft bus, or the structure that will carry the science 
instruments, is completed, the instruments are integrated into the spacecraft 
and tested, and the spacecraft is shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 
Florida for integration with the rocket.

"This is an exciting time for the OSIRIS-REx team," said Dante Lauretta, 
principal investigator for OSIRIS-Rex at the University of Arizona, Tucson. 
"After almost four years of intense design efforts, we are now proceeding 
with the start of flight system assembly. I am grateful for the hard work and 
team effort required to get us to this point."

OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to return samples from an asteroid to 
Earth. The spacecraft will travel to a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu and 
bring at least a 60-gram (2.1-ounce) sample back to Earth for study. 
OSIRIS-REx carries five instruments that will remotely evaluate the surface 
of Bennu. The mission will help scientists investigate the composition of the 
very early solar system and the source of organic materials and water that 
made their way to Earth, and improve understanding of asteroids that could 
impact our planet.

OSIRIS-REx is scheduled for launch in late 2016. The spacecraft will reach 
Bennu in 2018 and return a sample to Earth in 2023.

"The spacecraft structure has been integrated with the propellant tank and 
propulsion system and is ready to begin system integration in the Lockheed 
Martin highbay," said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA's 
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The payload suite of 
cameras and sensors is well into its environmental test phase and will be 
delivered later this summer/fall."

The key decision meeting was held at NASA Headquarters in Washington on March 
30 and chaired by NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

On March 27, assembly, launch and test operations officially began at 
Lockheed Martin in Denver. These operations represent a critical stage of the 
program when the spacecraft begins to take form, culminating with its 
launch. Over the next several months, technicians will install the subsystems 
on the main spacecraft structure, comprising avionics, power, telecomm, 
thermal systems, and guidance, navigation and control.

The next major milestone is the Mission Operations Review, scheduled for 
completion in June. The project will demonstrate that its navigation, 
planning, commanding, and science operations requirements are complete.

The mission's principal investigator is at the University of Arizona, Tucson. 
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will provide 
overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission 
assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in 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, Alabama, 
manages New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

OSIRIS-REx complements NASA's Asteroid Initiative, which aligns portions of 
the agency's science, space technology and human exploration capabilities in 
a coordinated asteroid research effort. The initiative will conduct research 
and analysis to better characterize and mitigate the threat these space rocks 
pose to our home planet.

Included in the initiative is NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), a 
robotic spacecraft mission that will capture a boulder from the surface of a 
near-Earth asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for 
exploration by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation's journey 
to Mars. The agency also is engaging new industrial capabilities, 
partnerships, open innovation and participatory exploration through the NASA 
Asteroid Initiative.

NASA also has made tremendous progress in the cataloging and characterization 
of near Earth objects over the past five years. The president's NASA budget 
included, and Congress authorized, $20.4 million for an expanded NASA 
Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program, increasing the resources for 
this critical program from the $4 million per year it had received since the 
1990s. The program was again expanded in fiscal year 2014, with a budget of 
$40.5 million. NASA is asking Congress for $50 million for this important 
work in the 2016 budget.

NASA has identified more than 12,000 NEOs to date, including 96 percent of 
near-Earth asteroids larger than 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) in size. NASA has 
not detected any objects of this size that pose an impact hazard to Earth in 
the next 100 years. Smaller asteroids do pass near Earth, however, and some 
could pose an impact threat. In 2011, 893 near-Earth asteroids were 
found. In 2014, that number was increased to 1,472.

In addition to NASA's ongoing work detecting and cataloging asteroids, the 
agency has engaged the public in the hunt for these space rocks through the 
agency's Asteroid Grand Challenge activities, including prize competitions. 
During the recent South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, the agency 
announced the release of a software application based on an algorithm created 
by a NASA challenge that has the potential to increase the number of new 
asteroid discoveries by amateur astronomers.

For more information about the OSIRIS-REx mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex 

and

http://asteroidmission.org 

For more information about the ARM and NASA's Asteroid Initiative, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/asteroidinitiative 

-end-

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.C.Brown at nasa.gov 
202-358-1726

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