Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

NASA Asteroid-Sampling Mission Readied for 2016 Launch.
Credit: NASA

An asteroid mission is undergoing final checkout for next year’s liftoff that kick-starts a 7-year roundtrip trek to become the first U.S. mission to haul back to Earth samples of a space rock.

Jim Harris, Lockheed Martin Space Systems mechanical engineer holding the OSIRIS-REx Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM).
Credit: Lockheed Martin

NASA’s Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, is progressing through Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations (ATLO) at Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems Company.

To read my new Space.com story: NASA Asteroid-Sampling Mission Being Readied for 2016 Launch

Go to:

http://www.space.com/30144-nasa-asteroid-sampling-mission-osiris-rex.html