NASA’s Spacecraft Will Rendezvous With Rare Asteroid Coming
On Its Way Back To Earth With Hefty
Sample of asteroid Bennu, the team behind NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission has big plans for the space rock-chasing spacecraft.
After The Spacecraft Drops Off
The sample next year, it will begin a new mission to study near-Earth asteroid Apophis, earning a new acronym OSIRIS-APEX.
NASA Recently Approved $200 Million
To cover the extended mission, which was welcome news to the University of Arizona-led team.
University Of Arizona Planetary
Science professor Daniella DellaGiustina will become the principal investigator under the APEX mission, but she is not new to the spacecraft.
She Currently Serves As
Deputy principal investigator on the OSIRIS-REx mission and has been part of the program since she was an undergraduate student in 2005 before NASA selected it.
Instead Of Traveling Through
The solar system and collecting a sample as the spacecraft did in 2020, this time, OSIRIS-APEX gets to wait for its subject a little closer to home.
A space telescope could reveal a black hole's photon ring