An artist's interpretation of NASA's asteroid-sample mission OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with the near-Earth asteroid designated 1999 RQ36 in 2020. The mission is expected to launch in 2016.
An artist's concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft near asteroid 1999 RQ36.
See how NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission to collect samples of the asteroid 1999 RQ36 will happen in this SPACE.com infographic. [See the full Infographic here]
This radar image of potentially hazardous asteroid 1999 RQ36 — the target of NASA's Osiris-Rex sample-return mission — was obtained by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif. on Sept 23, 1999.
Conceptual image of OSIRIS-REx.
This image shows how large NASA’s Osiris-Rex asteroid sampling spacecraft is compared to a person.
This graphic depicts the orbits of asteroid 1999 RQ36 and the terrestrial planets in our solar system. The asteroid is the target of NASA’s Osiris-Rex sample-return mission.
This chart depicts the criteria for choosing asteroid 1999 RQ36 as the target asteroid for NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission.
This graphic whose the location of science instruments on NASA’s Osiris-Rex asteroid sample-return mission.