OSIRIS-REx Mission Gains Attention

The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer or OSIRIS-REx is a spacecraft is under consideration by NASA as a New Frontiers Mission to launch in 2016 and subsequently rendezvous in 2018 and orbit a primitive asteroid named 1999 RQ36. The asteroid has a 1 in 1000 chance of slamming into the Earth in 160 or so years from now, according to best estimates.

The mission is gaining attention within the asteroid research community and among those advancing the new plan to advance a human mission to the asteroids by the Obama Administration. It is one of three poetential missions now in competition for 2011 mission funds.

Asteroid 1999 RQ36 is a break away "B-class" carbonaceous asteroid made of primitive material from the Solar System's early history that has not undergone extensive heating and thus modification since it was incorporated into the original Main Belt expected to impact the earth in 2170. It is deemed a hazardous asteroid because of the proximity Earth's orbit.

Planetary scientist Clark Chapman notes that if asteroid 1999 RQ36 were to collide with Earth, “It would be an enormous impact, like hundreds of the biggest nuclear bombs ever built exploding at once, creating a crater maybe 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] across,” although the impact would not be civilization-threatening.

According to the OSIRIS-REx mission plan, after extensive measurements, the instrument package would collect a pristine sample from the asteroid’s surface for return to Earth in 2023. The returned samples would help scientists better understand and answer long-held questions about the formation of our solar system and the origin of complex molecules necessary for life. The mission would also provide better trajectory analysis as to when the asteroid may imapct Earth.