OSIRIS-REx Delivers NASA’s First Asteroid Sample to Earth

On Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023 the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft capped its 7-year mission with the successful deposit of a pristine sample of surface material from the asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert. Now in a specially built clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the sample is being carefully curated before it is shared with researchers around the world – and saved for study by future generations. Within this sample, which is billions of years old, scientists will explore the origin of our solar system.