Bennu or bust. On 8 September, the OSIRIS-REx probe will leave Earth for the asteroid Bennu, and will return with souvenirs: up to 2 kilograms of material from its surface.
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) is the latest in a string of sample return missions, following the Stardust mission to the comet Wild 2 and the Hayabusa mission to asteroid Itokawa. Both of those missions hit hurdles, and neither brought more than a few grains of material back to Earth.
OSIRIS-Rex will pioneer a new and ambitious technique for gathering samples: a robotic arm equipped with a vacuum cleaner.
The probe will arrive at Bennu in August 2018. Entering a complex orbit around the asteroid, it will map its surface and measure its gravity, revealing how the mass inside Bennu is distributed.
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