{"id":114774,"date":"2020-10-19T08:38:50","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T12:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=114774"},"modified":"2020-10-29T11:27:51","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T15:27:51","slug":"osiris-rex-ready-to-for-touch-n-go-maneuver-on-thursday-oct-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/osiris-rex-ready-to-for-touch-n-go-maneuver-on-thursday-oct-20\/","title":{"rendered":"OSIRIS REx Ready to for Touch-and-Go Maneuver on Tuesday, Oct. 20"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four years after it launched, NASA\u2019s OSIRIS REx NASA mission is closing in on its big day. On Oct. 20, the spacecraft is scheduled to complete its touch-and-go move to collect a sample of asteroid Bennu.<\/p>\n

University of Central Florida Physics Professor and asteroid expert Humberto Campins<\/a> is counting down the days. He is part of the mission team led by University of Arizona Professor Dante S. Lauretta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is it,\u201d Campins says. \u201cThe past 10 years of my life have led to this moment. I\u2019m eager to see it go well and to see what we discover in the sample when it comes back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

If successful, the sample will be back on earth by 2023 and scientists will have a chance to examine it. While the Japanese Space Agency has completed one asteroid sample return mission and has another on its way back to Earth, this is NASA\u2019s first mission to retrieve an asteroid sample.<\/p>\n

Campins, who led a team that first discovered water ice on an asteroid<\/a>, has been working with the OSIRIS-REx team since 2010 and they have been especially busy since the spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center in 2016. But he\u2019s been chasing asteroids<\/a> his entire career, because they could hold the keys to understanding the formation of our solar system. And for Campins, it’s a mystery that needs to be solved.<\/p>\n