Reporter: NASA has a very exciting mission that is getting ready to launch
OSIRIS-REx is going be traveling to an asteroid called Bennu.
Taking a sample and returing that sample is the first time NASA has returned
such a sample from an asteroid and here to tell us more about this mission
is Dr. Jim Garvin at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Thanks for joining us.
Garvin: Thanks for having me.
Reporter: So later today NASA will launch it's first ever
sample return mission to an asteroid.
Tell us more about this mission.
Garvin: So OSIRIS-REx is a mission to explore
the time capsule of the solar system
and the kinds of objects that we think may have
catalyzed the chemistry that lead to life or other
very exciting prospects on the inner planets or beyond.
and so by going to the right place
with an advance robotic mission,
launching from Cape Canavereal, we can explore
that part of the history of our own planet and other planets
that's long gone and missing.
Bennu is a very special asteroid, only 1600 feet across,
an island in the sky, that we can go up
close to with this robotic spacecraft, sample it
and return those samples to Earth as a scientific
legacy for generations.
Kind of like the dead sea scrolls.
Only in this case for the science of our solar system.
Reporter: Now could asteroids contain the chemical
precursors for life here on Earth and maybe else in the solar system?
Garvin: We believe that there is very good prospect
that asteroids such as Bennu, that class of small
objects, countably infinint in space
contains the chemical building blocks of what could have started
as life and this asteroid is only the size of a large skyscraper
and we believe these asteroids,
ones like Bennu, collided with the early Earth, early Mars
and seeded the planets with chemistrys
that allow for the development of complicated molecules.
Some of which could have become
the building blocks of life and by testing that idea
with Bennu, we are exploring that
unknown history of early Earth
that's no longer preserved.
Reporter: Now NASA has a really
interesting way to kiss the asteroid
to collect a sample.
Show us how you're going to do that.
Garvin: So we are going to get close to this asteroid
mapping it in detail at a scale
finer then your own back yard
and by doing that mapping first over
a period of two years we'll find the right spot
to back in and gently high five
the asteroid and use a vacuum technique,
even though we are in a vacuum,
to collect 60 or 200 grams sort of the size of a baseball
of material and place it into special
sample return canister spacecraft that will then
in 2021 be sent on a return path to Earth
to land in the desert of Utah.
This is engineering at its best.
Reporter: Now what will science
do with a sample do with sample do with sample once it returns to Earth?
Garvin: Once those priceless samples come back to Earth
they'll be specially characterized and sealed incased
and administered and archived at the
Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas.
About a quarter of the samples will be the
samples that will be studied by the science team on this mission.
Lead by Donte Lauretta at the University of Arizona
and across the world.
The rest of the samples, some of which will be sent
to the Canadian Space Agency
as our partners on this mission and to Japan
the rest will be open for competition
amongst all the scientist of the planet
in their laboratories.
To pick apart the minute details of
the history of our solar system from these
priceless sample, the first in a
generation from surface of another world.
Reporter: Tell me why are you so personally
so excited for this mission?
Garvin: Well this mission gets to our roots
and I think when we think
about the small objects in the solar system
that collide with Earth
and actually produced many of the things
we think are relics of those collisions
today, including the building block collisions
the building blocks of like
possible the reservoirs of water
and other volatiles
This mission gets to that story and really it does so
with three missions in one;
sample return, asteroid reconnaissance.
and asteroid dynamic explorer.
All in one, for the price of a block buster movie.
What could be better?