May 16, 2013

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

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

RELEASE: 13-143

NASA'S ASTEROID SAMPLE RETURN MISSION MOVES INTO DEVELOPMENT

WASHINGTON -- NASA's first mission to sample an asteroid is moving ahead into development and testing in preparation for its launch in 2016

The Origins-Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) passed a confirmation review Wednesday called Key Decision Point (KDP)-C NASA officials reviewed a series of detailed project assessments and authorized the spacecraft's continuation into the development phase

OSIRIS-REx will rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in 2018 and return a sample of it to Earth in 2023

"Successfully passing KDP-C is a major milestone for the project," said Mike Donnelly, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md "This means NASA believes we have an executable plan to return a sample from Bennu It now falls on the project and its development team members to execute that plan "

Bennu could hold clues to the origin of the solar system OSIRIS-REx will map the asteroid's global properties, measure non-gravitational forces and provide observations that can be compared with data obtained by telescope observations from Earth OSIRIS-REx will collect a minimum of 2 ounces (60 grams) of surface material

"The entire OSIRIS-REx team has worked very hard to get to this point," said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson "We have a long way to go before we arrive at Bennu , but I have every confidence when we do, we will have built a supremely capable system to return a sample of this primitive asteroid "

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

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md will provide overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance The University of Arizona in Tucson 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://www nasa gov/mission_pages/osiris-rex/index html

and

http://osiris-rex lpl arizona edu/

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