Cape Canaveral, Florida (CNN) NASA on Thursday evening launched a space probe called OSIRIS-REx to chase down a dark, potentially dangerous asteroid called Bennu . The probe will take a sample of the asteroid and -- in a US space first -- bring the sample back to Earth.

"NASA did it again!" Jim Green, Planetary Science Division director at NASA, said at a post-launch briefing.

"Tonight is a night for celebration," said Ellen Stofan , NASA chief scientist. "We are on our way to an asteroid."

OSIRIS-REx lifted off at 7:05 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. NASA tweeted, "Our @OSIRISREx spacecraft is on its way, and everything is on the timeline ..."

Our @OSIRISREx spacecraft is on its way, and everything is on the timeline. Keep watching: https://t.co/KX5g7zfYQe pic.twitter.com/89uZ54af0v

Mission managers said the launch was flawless, the spacecraft is in excellent health and that the mission is hitting all its early milestones.

"The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is happy and healthy," said Rich Kuhns, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft.

The mission's principal investigator, Dante Lauretta, said the next big moment for him will be seeing Bennu for the first time from OSIRIS-REx.

"Everyone on the team has some image in their mind of what Bennu is going to look like and it's going to be phenomenal to see what it really looks like."

Those images should start arriving in about two years as OSIRIS-REx approaches Bennu.

Life, sort of, imitating art

In this real life story, OSIRIS-REx will study and sample Bennu, a big, roundish space rock that has made it onto NASA's list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids . That means Bennu is one of the most dangerous space rocks we know of because it could one day collide with Earth.

The probe is scheduled to arrive at Bennu in August 2018. For months it will hang out -- take pictures, make scans of the asteroid's surface and create a map.

Then, in July 2020, OSIRIS-REx will unfurl its 11-foot-long (3.35-meter) robot arm called TAGSAM and make contact with Bennu's surface for about five seconds. During those few seconds, the arm will use a blast of nitrogen gas to kick up rocks and dust and then try to snag a sample of the dust and store it.

"We are basically a space vacuum cleaner," said Lauretta

NASA hopes to get at least 2 ounces (60 grams) and maybe as much as 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of asteroid dust and small rocks.

Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth OSIRIS-REx pulled within 12 miles of the diamond-shaped space rock Monday, December 3. Hide Caption 1 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth An artist's concept of what the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will look like as it orbits asteroid Bennu. Hide Caption 2 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth OSIRIS-REx sits on top of its launch vehicle, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, after it was rolled to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral on September 7, 2016. Hide Caption 3 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth This drawing shows an artist's concept of what it will look like when the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly touches asteroid Bennu with its robot arm to grab a sample of the asteroid. Hide Caption 4 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth OSIRIS-REx will spend two years mapping and scanning Bennu before taking a sample of the asteroid and flying it back to Earth. Hide Caption 5 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is sealed inside its protective payload fairing as it sits atop a rocket at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on September 2. Hide Caption 6 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, enclosed in its protective shell, is lifted and examined by workers on August 29 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Hide Caption 7 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is sealed inside a two-piece payload fairing on August 24. The fairing will protect it during launch. Hide Caption 8 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth The OSIRIS-REx arrives at Kennedy Space Center on an Air Force C-17 aircraft. The spacecraft was shipped in this huge container from Lockheed Martin's facility near Denver. The spacecraft arrived at Kennedy on May 20. Hide Caption 9 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Denver. It is 20.25 feet in length (6.2 meters) with its solar arrays deployed. Its width is 8 feet (2.43 meters) x 8 feet (2.43 meters). Its height is 10.33 feet (3.15 meters). It's powered by two solar panels that generate between 1,226 watts and 3,000 watts. It has five instruments to explore asteroid Bennu and also has a robot arm to touch the asteroid long enough to collect a sample. Hide Caption 10 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth OSIRIS-REx will briefly touch asteroid Bennu to take a sample of the space rock. It will use its 11-foot ( (3.35 meters) robot arm, called the Touch-and-Go Sample Arm Mechanism, or TAGSAM. Above, a worker at Lockheed Martin tests the arm. Hide Caption 11 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is rotated on a spin table during testing on May 24 at Kennedy Space Center. Hide Caption 12 of 13 Photos: OSIRIS-REx will take a sample of asteroid Bennu and return it to Earth These radar images of asteroid Bennu were obtained by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California, on September 23, 1999. Hide Caption 13 of 13

"We kind of expect a gravel field on the surface of the asteroid," Lauretta said. He said he thinks the rocks will be about half an inch, based on information gathered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

on September 24, 2023, but it won't land. In a bit of Hollywood-style drama, it will fly over Utah and OSIRIS-REx heads home in March 2021 and arrives back at Earthon September 24, 2023, but it won't land. In a bit of Hollywood-style drama, it will fly over Utah and drop off the capsule holding the asteroid sample. A parachute will guide the capsule to the ground at the Utah Test and Training Range in Tooele County.

Will Bennu really hit Earth?

The short answer is maybe. If it does, it's big enough to do some damage.

Bennu has a diameter of 1,614 feet (492 meters). It makes its next approach to Earth in 2135 when it will pass just inside the moon's orbit.

This close approach will change Bennu's orbit, and scientists say that could cause it to impact Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199. The odds are small -- about 1 in 2,500. But NASA wants to get as much warning as possible for anything that threatens Earth.

It's worth pointing out that while Bennu is a known threat, NASA said only about 51% of the near-Earth asteroids of Bennu's size have been found.

Meaning there could be lots of unknown threats out there.

The mission is a first for NASA but ...

This is not the first mission to bring an asteroid sample to Earth. Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft brought back a small sample of asteroid Itokawa dust in 2010.

NASA also has brought back other space rocks and dust:



•

• The

• And NASA has landed on an asteroid before: The • The Apollo astronauts brought back rocks and soil from the moon. NASA's Stardust mission brought back samples of dust from Comet Wild 2.• The GENESIS mission brought back samples of the solar wind, material ejected from the outer portion of the sun, in 2004.• And NASA has landed on an asteroid before: The NEAR-Shoemaker mission touched down on asteroid Eros in 2000. It's still there. But it didn't send back any samples.

What OSIRIS-REx won't do ...

It won't blow up Bennu, and it won't save the Earth from any other menacing space rocks.

Right now, efforts to defend the planet from asteroids and comets are still in their infancy.

"It really takes more than one agency for the kind of capabilities that are needed for this," Lindley Johnson of NASA's new Planetary Defense Coordination Office told CNN.

He said the new office is coordinating with several agencies, the US government and other nations to help develop resources to defend Earth from asteroids of about 330 feet (100 meters) in size or larger. (For smaller asteroids we would just be told to take cover.)

But we would have to know years in advance that a dangerous rock is coming before we could do anything about it.

"We would need probably at least five years warning to 10 years warning to be able to launch an effective space mission to deflect that object," Johnson said.

NASA has a spacecraft called NEOWISE that is hunting potentially threatening asteroids. Ground-based telescopes also are helping watch Pan-STARRS LINEAR (it discovered Bennu in 1999) and the Catalina Sky Survey

Early Monday, the Catalina Sky Survey detected an asteroid close to Earth that had never been seen before. The rock was given the designation 2016 RB1.

"Just right about now, it's on its closest approach to the Earth, passing underneath the Earth at about 21,000 miles (33,796 kilometers)," Johnson said a briefing Wednesday afternoon. "That's closer than communications satellites orbit the Earth."

NASA estimated the asteroid to be between 25 and 50 feet (7 and 16 meters) in diameter and said it was not a hazard to Earth. "If it were to have impacted the Earth, it would have disintegrated in the atmosphere," Johnson said.

Besides trying to identify potentially hazardous asteroids, Johnson's agency is working on plans to deflect them away from Earth. It's collaborating with the European Space Agency on the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment Mission , and it's working with other NASA departments on the Asteroid Redirect Mission

About the spacecraft

The name OSIRIS-REx is an acronym for the spacecraft's mission objectives: Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security-Regolith Explorer. The acronym spells the name of the Egyptian god Osiris.

Minus fuel, OSIRIS-REx weighs 1,940 pounds (880 kilograms). With fuel -- 4,650 pounds (2,110 kilograms).

The sample return capsule weighs about 100 pounds (45.4 kilograms).

The mission costs about $800 million excluding the rocket.

Bennu was named by North Carolina student Michael Puzio during a 2013 international contest. Puzio, who was 9 at the time, thought the spacecraft's robot arm and solar panels looked like the Bennu bird, also from Egyptian mythology. (Before Puzio stepped up, the rock was known in the scientific community as 1999 RQ36.)

And what happens to the spacecraft after it drops off its sample?

OSIRIS-REx will keep flying and will go orbit the sun. NASA said it may be repurposed, but it won't be bringing home any more samples.</s>The mission has been described as a ‘slow high-five’ with a nearby asteroid to collect material that could date back to the origins of the solar system

Nasa launched a spacecraft on Thursday for a mission to slap an asteroid, capture some of the debris that shakes off, and return more interstellar samples to Earth than any mission since the Apollo era.

The space agency launched its Osiris-Rex spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in clear dusk skies a little after 7pm, local time, Thursday as scientists, reporters and spectators cheered. Within minutes, the rocket booster jettisoned, leaving the craft en route for a seven-year journey into space.

Nasa's Osiris-Rex probe set to attempt 'smash-and-grab' on speeding asteroid Read more

Though Atlas V rockets have had a 100% success rate, Nasa engineers combed over the launch procedures with extra care this week, following the explosion of a SpaceX rocket and its payload last week. Even with the extra precaution, the mission is so far on schedule and under budget, principal investigator Dante Lauretta told reporters earlier this week.

“Nobody likes to see your colleagues go through a day like they did,” Lauretta said. “It was a stark reminder of the risk we face in this business.”

Celebrating with his colleagues after the successful launch, Lauretta struck a philosophical note. “It’s the human spirit, you know? Orisis-Rex is us,” he said at a briefing. The mission, he added, fit Nasa’s broader quest to answer “the big questions: where do we come from, what is our future, and really, are we alone in the universe?”

The two-ton spacecraft is on a mission to Bennu, officially classed a “potentially hazardous asteroid” chosen for its relative proximity to Earth and our orbit. The asteroid nears Earth every six years and will come closest in 2135, when it threads between our planet and the moon. In the decades after that pass, to about 300,000km from the planet, Nasa calculated that Bennu has a one in 2,700 chance to strike the Earth.

Osiris-Rex is scheduled to meet its 492m-wide destination in August 2018, and it will spend as long as two years mapping Bennu. “We will be able to see an object the size of a penny on Bennu,” Nasa researcher Daniella DellaGiustina told reporters at a separate briefing.

Once it has found a suitable spot on the surface, Osiris-Rex will swing down, strike the asteroid with a jet of nitrogen and capture what debris it bounces off the surface. Christine Richey, deputy program scientist for the mission, called the operation a “safe, smooth, slow high-five” to collect material that could date back to the origins of the solar system.

SpaceX's booms and busts: spaceflight is littered with explosions and disasters Read more

Then the craft will drift away and measure its prize: the scientist want at least 60 grams, and as much as two kilograms, to expel in a capsule back Earth. If all goes well, the chunk of asteroid will parachute down to Utah in September 2023. Past missions have brought scientists less than a milligram of asteroid material and samples of solar wind and comet dust.

A single sample “is a lifetime of data”, Nasa astrochemist Jason Dworkin told reporters.

“You can take rocks and slice them up into tiny, tiny fragments and manipulate them using people,” he said, noting that one of his colleagues continues to study material from the Apollo missions. “People not yet born, with ideas we don’t have now, can test them in ways we can’t even conceive of.”

Richey agreed that a successful return would be “the gift that keeps on giving”.

The researchers hope that the asteroid material will help reveal what happened in the earliest stages of the solar system, including whether asteroids brought water and organic molecules to planets like Earth, seeding it with the chemicals for life.

While Osiris-Rex studies the asteroid from orbit, it will also help scientists learn how sunlight changes asteroids by heating them up and subtly changing their course. They may also learn more about how to predict their paths and potentially deflect larger, more dangerous rocks, such as the six-mile-wide asteroid believed to have killed the dinosaurs.</s>US space agency NASA is poised Thursday to launch its groundbreaking first mission to a near-Earth asteroid to collect samples that could shed light on the dawn of the solar system.

Scientists hope the seven-year, $800 million mission will reveal something about the origins of the Bennu asteroid and of life itself.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to blast off Thursday at 7:05 pm (2305 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"The primary objective of the mission is to bring back 60 grams (2.1 ounces) of pristine carbon-rich material from the surface of Bennu," said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the mission and a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona.

"We expect these samples will contain organic molecules from the early solar system that may give us information and clues to the origin of life."

The Lockheed Martin-made spacecraft will be carried aboard an Atlas V rocket made by United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture owned by Lockheed and Boeing.

Weather forecasters said there was an 80 percent chance of favorable conditions for the launch of the mission aimed at peering into the solar system's birth 4.5 billion years ago.

OSIRIX-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) is expected to reach Bennu in August 2018 and return to Earth with its bounty in 2023.

The asteroid is about 1,600 feet (492 meters) in diameter. "Think of it as a small mountain in space," Lauretta said.

Its 1.2-year orbit around the sun brings it closer to Earth every six years at a distance similar to the moon -- although there is very little chance Bennu could collide with Earth, according to estimates by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The highest probability, one in 2,500, would occur between 2175 and 2196.

Once OSIRIX-REx reaches the asteroid in 2018, five instruments will map its surface using 3D laser imaging, identify the minerals and chemicals that may be on the surface, and select the sample site.

In July 2020, the spacecraft will touch Bennu -- but only for three seconds -- with a three-meter (3.3-yard) arm to collect rocks and dust using a device called the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM).

The TAGSAM is a type of reverse-vacuum device originally conceived by a Lockheed Martin engineer in his garage.

The space dust -- which may reveal how the materials necessary for life, such as carbon and ice, made their way to Earth -- will be stored in a capsule for the return journey.

The OSIRIS-REx will leave the asteroid in March 2021 and travel two and a half years to return to Earth in September 2023.

As the spacecraft nears our planet, the return sample capsule will be ejected and gently lowered to Earth by parachutes to an area southwest of Salt Lake City in the western state of Utah.

From there it will be transported to the NASA space center in Houston, Texas, where the materials will be analyzed.

The OSIRIS-REx will remain in orbit around the sun.

The mission will lay the groundwork for future explorations of asteroids and other small objects in the solar system, scientists say.

It could notably cast light on the widely accepted hypothesis that this type of asteroid brought water and other materials seen as necessary for life on Earth, they say.

Another aim of the mission is to measure the Yarkovsky effect, the sun's heating force on asteroids as they rotate that can cause them to drift widely over time.

A better understanding of this effect could help scientists more accurately predict the long-term risk of asteroids to Earth and divert the path of those threatening to collide with our planet.

In December 2014 the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency launched a similar mission, Hayabusa 2, which should reach an asteroid (162173 Ryugu) in 2018.

The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft will place on the space rock's surface a small lander named Mascot, produced by the French and German space agencies.

Its predecessor, Hayabusa, was supposed to study the effect of a crash landing on asteroid Itokawa and recover samples to bring back to Earth, but it only managed to bring back a few micrograms of material in 2010.

The European Space Agency succeeded in November 2014 to put its Philae lander on a comet, a space first. The lander transmitted 60 hours of data before running out of power.

Unlike the OSIRIS-REx mission, a return to Earth had not been planned.</s>Cape Canaveral, Florida (CNN) NASA on Thursday evening launched a space probe called OSIRIS-REx to chase down a dark, potentially dangerous asteroid called Bennu . The probe will take a sample of the asteroid and -- in a US space first -- bring the sample back to Earth.

"NASA did it again!" Jim Green, Planetary Science Division director at NASA, said at a post-launch briefing.

"Tonight is a night for celebration," said Ellen Stofan , NASA chief scientist. "We are on our way to an asteroid."

OSIRIS-REx lifted off at 7:05 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. NASA tweeted, "Our @OSIRISREx spacecraft is on its way, and everything is on the timeline ..."

Our @OSIRISREx spacecraft is on its way, and everything is on the timeline. Keep watching: https://t.co/KX5g7zfYQe pic.twitter.com/89uZ54af0v

Mission managers said the launch was flawless, the spacecraft is in excellent health and that the mission is hitting all its early milestones.

"The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is happy and healthy," said Rich Kuhns, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft.

The mission's principal investigator, Dante Lauretta, said the next big moment for him will be seeing Bennu for the first time from OSIRIS-REx.

"Everyone on the team has some image in their mind of what Bennu is going to look like and it's going to be phenomenal to see what it really looks like."

Those images should start arriving in about two years as OSIRIS-REx approaches Bennu.

NASA hopes to get at least 2 ounces (60 grams) and maybe as much as 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of asteroid dust and small rocks.

The short answer is maybe. If it does, it's big enough to do some damage.

This close approach will change Bennu's orbit, and scientists say that could cause it to impact Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199. The odds are small -- about 1 in 2,500. But NASA wants to get as much warning as possible for anything that threatens Earth.

It's worth pointing out that while Bennu is a known threat, NASA said only about 51% of the near-Earth asteroids of Bennu's size have been found.

Meaning there could be lots of unknown threats out there.

The mission is a first for NASA but ...

NASA also has brought back other space rocks and dust:

It won't blow up Bennu, and it won't save the Earth from any other menacing space rocks.

Right now, efforts to defend the planet from asteroids and comets are still in their infancy.

He said the new office is coordinating with several agencies, the US government and other nations to help develop resources to defend Earth from asteroids of about 330 feet (100 meters) in size or larger. (For smaller asteroids we would just be told to take cover.)

But we would have to know years in advance that a dangerous rock is coming before we could do anything about it.

"We would need probably at least five years warning to 10 years warning to be able to launch an effective space mission to deflect that object," Johnson said.

"Just right about now, it's on its closest approach to the Earth, passing underneath the Earth at about 21,000 miles (33,796 kilometers)," Johnson said a briefing Wednesday afternoon. "That's closer than communications satellites orbit the Earth."

NASA estimated the asteroid to be between 25 and 50 feet (7 and 16 meters) in diameter and said it was not a hazard to Earth. "If it were to have impacted the Earth, it would have disintegrated in the atmosphere," Johnson said.

The mission costs about $800 million excluding the rocket.

And what happens to the spacecraft after it drops off its sample?

OSIRIS-REx will keep flying and will go orbit the sun. NASA said it may be repurposed, but it won't be bringing home any more samples.</s>Cape Canaveral, Florida (CNN) NASA is launching a space probe called OSIRIS-REx on Thursday to chase down a dark, potentially dangerous asteroid called Bennu . The probe will take a sample of the asteroid and -- in a US space first -- bring the sample back to Earth.

"I'm really excited. I can't wait to get to the asteroid," OSIRIS-REx program scientist Jeffrey Grossman told CNN. "We're going to learn so much about the solar system from studying this asteroid and getting a sample back."

If you're thinking this sounds a bit like the plot from the 1998 sci-fi flick "Armageddon," you would be right, but without Bruce Willis (there won't be any people on this spacecraft) and without space shuttles. (NASA retired the shuttles in 2011.)

In this real life story, OSIRIS-REx will study and sample Bennu, a big, roundish space rock that has made it onto NASA's list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids . That means Bennu is one of the most dangerous space rocks we know of because it could one day collide with Earth.

Thursday's launch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET , with backup launch windows for an additional 33 days. OSIRIS-REx will lift off from Cape Canaveral on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The spacecraft rolled out to the launch pad Wednesday.

What OSIRIS-REx will do?

NASA hopes to get at least 2 ounces (60 grams) and maybe as much as 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of asteroid dust and small rocks.

The short answer is maybe. If it does, it's big enough to do some damage.

This close approach will change Bennu's orbit, and scientists say that could cause it to impact Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199. The odds are small -- about 1 in 2,500. But NASA wants to get as much warning as possible for anything that threatens Earth.

It's worth pointing out that while Bennu is a known threat, NASA said only about 51% of the near-Earth asteroids of Bennu's size have been found.

Meaning there could be lots of unknown threats out there.

The mission is a first for NASA but ...

NASA also has brought back other space rocks and dust:

It won't blow up Bennu, and it won't save the Earth from any other menacing space rocks.

Right now, efforts to defend the planet from asteroids and comets are still in their infancy.

He said the new office is coordinating with several agencies, the US government and other nations to help develop resources to defend Earth from asteroids of about 330 feet (100 meters) in size or larger. (For smaller asteroids we would just be told to take cover.)

But we would have to know years in advance that a dangerous rock is coming before we could do anything about it.

"We would need probably at least five years warning to 10 years warning to be able to launch an effective space mission to deflect that object," Johnson said.

"Just right about now, it's on its closest approach to the Earth, passing underneath the Earth at about 21,000 miles (33,796 kilometers)," Johnson said a briefing Wednesday afternoon. "That's closer than communications satellites orbit the Earth."

NASA estimated the asteroid to be between 25 and 50 feet (7 and 16 meters) in diameter and said it was not a hazard to Earth. "If it were to have impacted the Earth, it would have disintegrated in the atmosphere," Johnson said.

The mission costs about $800 million excluding the rocket.

And what happens to the spacecraft after it drops off its sample?

OSIRIS-REx will keep flying and will go orbit the sun. NASA said it may be repurposed, but it won't be bringing home any more samples.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Sept 8 (Reuters) - An Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday carrying a space probe on NASA's first quest to collect samples from an asteroid and return them to Earth in hopes of learning more about the origins of life.

The United Launch Alliance booster lifted off at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Perched on top of the 19-story rocket was NASA's robot explorer Osiris-Rex, built by Lockheed Martin to carry out the seven-year, $1 billion mission to and from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

United Launch Alliance is a private partnership between Lockheed and Boeing.

The 3,300-pound (1,500 kg) solar-powered probe is expected to take two years to reach its destination, a dark, rocky mass roughly a third of a mile wide and shaped like giant acorn orbiting the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth.

Scientists believe Bennu is covered with organic compounds dating back to the earliest days of the solar system.

"You can think of these asteroids as literally prebiotic chemical factories that were producing building blocks of life 4.5 billion years ago, before Earth formed, before life started here," NASA astrobiologist Daniel Glavin said before launch.

Once it settles into orbit around Bennu in 2018, the Osiris-Rex probe will spend up to two more years mapping the asteroid's surface and taking inventory of its chemical and mineral composition.

Scientists will ultimately select a promising site to sample and command Osiris-Rex to fly close enough to Bennu so that the probe's 11-foot-long (3.4 meter) robot arm can touch the asteroid's surface. A sampling container will then release a swirl of nitrogen gas, which will stir up gravel and soil for collection.

After gathering at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of material, Osiris-Rex will fly back to Earth, jettisoning a capsule bearing the asteroid-sample container for a parachute descent and landing in the Utah desert in September 2023.

Osiris-Rex is the latest in a series of missions to asteroids that began with the 1991 flyby of asteroid Gaspra by NASA's Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft.

Only one other spacecraft, Japan's Hayabusa, has previously returned samples from an asteroid to Earth, but due to a series of problems it collected less than a milligram of material. A follow-on mission, Hayabusa 2, is underway, with a return to Earth planned for December 2020.

The U.S. space agency also hopes Osiris-Rex will demonstrate the advanced imaging and mapping techniques needed for future science missions and for upcoming commercial asteroid-mining expeditions.

Although Bennu occupies the same approximate orbital distance from the sun, it poses little threat to Earth. NASA estimates that there is a one-in-2,700 chance that Bennu might hit Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199. (Reporting by Irene Klotz at Cape Canaveral; Editing by Steve Gorman and Tom Brown)</s>WASHINGTON: US space agency NASA is poised Thursday to launch its groundbreaking first mission to a near-Earth asteroid to collect samples that could shed light on the dawn of the solar system.

Scientists hope the seven-year, $800 million mission will reveal something about the origins of the Bennu asteroid and of life itself.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to blast off Thursday at 7:05 pm (2305 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“The primary objective of the mission is to bring back 60 grams (2.1 ounces) of pristine carbon-rich material from the surface of Bennu,” said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of the mission and a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona.

“We expect these samples will contain organic molecules from the early solar system that may give us information and clues to the origin of life.”

The Lockheed Martin-made spacecraft will be carried aboard an Atlas V rocket made by United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture owned by Lockheed and Boeing.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Sept 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. space probe was cleared for launch on Thursday to collect and return samples from an asteroid in hopes of learning more about the origins of life on Earth and perhaps elsewhere in the solar system, NASA said on Tuesday.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket was scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to dispatch the robot explorer Osiris-Rex on a seven-year mission.

United Launch Alliance is a partnership of Lockheed-Martin and Boeing.

Osiris-Rex is headed to a 1,640-foot (500-meter) wide asteroid named Bennu, which circles the sun in roughly the same orbit as Earth. NASA estimates that there is a one-in-2,700 chance that Bennu might hit Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199.

NASA estimates that there is a one-in-2,700 chance that Bennu might hit Earth sometime between 2175 and 2199.

Chance of being born left-handed: one in 10.

Chance of dying on a U.S. motor vehicle accident: one in 112.

Heating from the sun gently pushes the asteroid, and charting its path is among the goals of the $1 billion mission. The U.S. space agency also hopes Osiris-Rex will demonstrate the advanced imaging and mapping techniques needed for future science missions and for upcoming commercial asteroid-mining expeditions.

Osiris-Rex is expected to reach Bennu in August 2018 and begin a two-year study of its physical features and chemical composition. The solar-powered spacecraft will then fly to Bennu's surface and extend a robot arm to collect at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of what scientists hope will be carbon-rich material.

"We're going to asteroid Bennu because it's a time capsule from the earliest stages of solar system formation, back when our planetary system was spread across as dust grains in a swirling cloud around our growing protostar," lead researcher Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona told a prelaunch news conference on Tuesday.

Inside the developing solar system, small rocky bodies were beginning to form, many of them studded with water ice and organic materials, which are key compounds that may have made Earth habitable or even given life its start, Lauretta said.

If all goes as planned, the capsule containing samples from Bennu will be jettisoned from the returning Osiris-Rex spacecraft on Sept. 24, 2023, for a parachute descent and landing at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range.

Osiris-Rex is the latest in a series of missions to asteroids that began with the 1991 flyby of asteroid Gaspra by NASA's Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft. Japan's Hayabusa 1 probe managed to return a few tiny grains of asteroid Itokawa to Earth in 2010, the first asteroid sample return mission. A follow-on mission, Hayabusa 2, is underway.

The Osiris-Rex launch was set for between 7:05 p.m. and 9:05 p.m. on Thursday (2305 to 0105 GMT on Friday).</s>What the OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission is all about</s>A Colorado-developed spacecraft designed to follow, study and briefly touch a large asteroid with an orbit near Earth is set to take off Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

OSIRIS-REx, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer, has a mission of studying the Bennu asteroid and snatching a sample from its surface.

NASA is scheduled to launch the craft within a two-hour window starting at 5:05 p.m. local time.

“We designed and built the entire spacecraft, including a unique collection arm” said Gary Napier, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin in Littleton.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Littleton will monitor and operate the craft during its seven-year mission and in another Colorado connection, NASA is launching the craft on an Atlas 5 rocket built by the United Launch Alliance, which is based in Centennial.

Scientists at the University of Arizona are heading up the project, the third under NASA’s New Frontier program, which seeks to advance the understanding of the solar system with relatively low-cost projects.

After launch, OSIRIS-REx will orbit for a year and fly by the earth on Sept. 22, 2017, in a slingshot maneuver designed to whip it towards Bennu, which it expects to reach in August 2018.

OSIRIS-REx will spend the next two years photographing and mapping the asteroid to better understand its composition and features, including locating the best spot to collect a sample some time in July 2020.

Low-gravity conditions make landing on Bennu and trying to scoop up loose materials from the bedrock difficult. Instead, the craft will extend an 11-foot arm with a device to vacuum up a sample using a device called the Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism or TAGSAM.

Lockheed Martin engineer Jim Harris developed the TAGSAM, which uses a concentrated blast of nitrogen gas to push materials into a collection chamber.

The goal is to collect a minimum of 4 ounces of material, but possibly as much as 4 pounds, Napier said. The craft has enough nitrogen gas to make three attempts to get what it needs.

By March 2021, the craft will bid adieu to Bennu 101955 and make its way back to earth. A capsule containing the samples will separate and make its way back to earth on Sept. 24, 2023, landing in the Utah desert. Its mission accomplished, OSIRIS-REx will head off into deep space awaiting future instructions.

So why spend $800 million, not counting the launch vehicle, to chase an asteroid moving 63,000 miles per hour for seven years and grab a small sample in a five-second span?

For starters, Bennu is carbon-bearing asteroid. While common in space, the ones that have landed on Earth quickly become contaminated. Scooping up the ancient and pristine carbon-based materials could offer insights into the origins of the solar system.

Dante Lauretta, professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona, is heading a team of scientists trying to answer questions such as how do materials flow and form in low-gravity environments and whether asteroids contributed to the water found on earth.

There is another, less esoteric, reason for getting to know that particular asteroid, which is named after the ancient Egyptian bird deity.

Every six years, Bennu comes very close to earth. By the second half of the next century, scientists put the probability of Bennu hitting earth at 1 in 2,700, Napier said. Long odds, perhaps, but a head-on collision with a chunk of rock the size of five football fields would be devastating.
The United Launch Alliance successfully launches NASA's OSIRIS-REx from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 41 in Florida. The mission is to study asteroid 101955 Bennu and in 2023 to return a sample to Earth for detailed analysis. If successful, OSIRIS-REx will be the first U.S. spacecraft to return samples from an asteroid.