September 10, 2016
Your birthday is not just a date on a calendar. It is the yearly return of a moment when the universe became more observant, more feeling,...
The Launch of OSIRIS-REx
Birthday · September 10, 2016
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APOD published September 10, 2016. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Near sunset on Thursday, clear skies saw the launch of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Sporting a single solid rocket booster, its Atlas V vehicle blasts off from Cape Canaveral's Complex 41 in this low, wide-angle view toward launch pad and setting Sun. OSIRIS-REx is bound for Bennu, scheduled to encounter the mountain-sized asteroid in 2018. First the spacecraft will swing back by home world planet Earth though, for a gravity assist maneuver to boost it on its way. After a detailed survey of Bennu OSIRIS-REx will collect a sample from the asteroid's surface in 2020 and bring it home, returning to Earth in 2023. If all goes well it will be the largest sample returned by a space mission since the Apollo era.