HERE’S HOW THAT SPACE PROGRAM IS COMING ALONG: What is OSIRIS-REx? Everything you need to know about the 1st NASA spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

The OSIRIS-REx (short for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft was developed for NASA by Lockheed Martin. It is roughly the size of a van and, when fully fueled, weighs around 4,650 pounds (2,110 kilograms).

Besides folding solar panels, onboard cameras, and equipment to map Bennu’s surface, OSIRIS-REx is equipped with a 10-foot-long (3 meters) sample arm for retrieving chunks of rock from the asteroid.

After returning the samples to Earth, OSIRIS-REx is due to launch again in 2029 — this time, to the asteroid Apophis, another potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid laden with intriguing subsurface materials.

OSIRIS-REx’s first target, Bennu, is an 85.5 million-ton (77.5 million metric tons) space rock that is on track to swoop within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit between 2175 and 2199. If Bennu, which is as wide as the Empire State Building is tall, were to slam into Earth, the estimated kinetic energy released would be 1,200 megatons — roughly 80,000 times greater than the energy of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Whether this collision will occur is unknown. The projected odds (the highest for any known asteroid) are slim, at just 1 in 2,700, but unpredictable alterations to Bennu’s orbit, made constantly by tiny nudges from starlight, could still shift it onto a collision course with Earth.

Much more at the link about an underappreciated NASA program.