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May 25, 2011 05:43 pm PDT

NASA to launch new robotic science mission to asteroid in 2016

Conceptual image of OSIRIS-REx. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona NASA today announced a new space exploration mission: to launch a spacecraft to an asteroid in 2016, and "use a robotic arm to pluck samples that could better explain our solar system's formation and how life began." The mission will be titled Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, and will be the first U.S. mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth. Boing Boing's science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker and I are on a NASA conference call as I type this post; look for a longer report by Maggie on this news. Lockheed Martin will build the craft; the launches will take place at Kennedy Space Center. The cost of the mission is estimated around 1 billion dollars. A copy of the NASA press release announcing the mission follows....


Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/9HTtjXe1I-A/nasa-to-launch-missi.html

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