NASA's asteroid sampling mission on track to land this weekend

Enlarge / Scientists created This mosaic of asteroid Bennu using imagery collection by from NASA OSIRIS-REx spatialship. THE asteroid spans about 1,600 feet (500 meters) through.

A NASA spatialship will complete A round trip journey has A asteroid This weekend, to come back has Earth After A seven years journey has bring back intact rock specimens Since A extraterrestrial world that could yield knowledge In THE training of life.

THE landing Sunday has 8:55 a.m. am local time In Utah (10:55 a.m. am EDT Or 2:55 p.m. UTC) will wrap up A round trip journey of 4.4 billion kilometers (7.1 billion kilometers) For from NASA robotics OSIRIS-REx assignment. THE back will together In movement another sequence of firmly choreography events has secure THE asteroid sample capsule, fly he half-way through THE country has A NASA ease has THE Johnson Space Center In Houston, SO open he up has reveal THE prime inside.

"THE spatialship path And performance to have just has been place on," said Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program director has Lockheed Martin, THE business that built And works THE spatialship on in the name of of NASA. "We to have just A little remaining not Before We to have Bennu samples on THE ground."

Dante Laurette, THE missions main investigator base has THE University of Arizona, said he has conceived Sundays events For almost two decades. NASA selected OSIRIS-REx For development In 2011, END A seven years ride a bike of reflection, proposals, And Comments that began with A meeting In A Tucson bar In 2004.

HAS that meeting, Laurette And Michael Drake—the missions original lead scientist WHO deceased month After her concept won NASA support In 2011 – achieved with A engineer Since Lockheed Martin And sketch out What would be be required has collect And bring House pieces of A asteroid.

Enlarge / Dante Laurette, chief of THE OSIRIS-REx science team, answers A question during A August 30 press conference. NASA/Keegan Hairdresser

OSIRIS-REx East A acronym that stands For Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer. It is A plot has unpack, but It is sufficient has say THE assignment East all about bringing asteroid material back has Earth For detailed analyzes In research Laboratories, which to boast abilities far beyond even THE most sophisticated science instrument on A spaceship.

Drake's team propose THE OSIRIS-REx assignment concept has from NASA New Borders program In 2008, When they competed with other planetary assignment proposals For agency funding. Three years later, scientists obtained THE call that OSIRIS-REx won THE competition. Laurette took on THE assignment After Drake's the death, shepherd OSIRIS-REx through development And It is launch a board A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on September 8, 2016, SO managed THE two and a half year science campaign When THE spatialship reached asteroid Bennu, A strewn with rocks world approximately THE size of A little mountain.

In THE chaotic early history of THE Solar System, Soon After THE Sun flashed has life 4.5 billion years There is, A disk of gas And dust around THE new born star begin aggregation together - first In cereals of dust, SO In shaped like a snowflake particles that gradually came together has form asteroids And planets. Scientists think Bennu East A left over relic Since...