Uploaded October 2017 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
OSIRIS-REx, NASA's asteroid sample return spacecraft, successfully used Earth’s gravity on Friday to slingshot itself onto a path toward the asteroid Bennu, for a rendezvous next August.
At 12:52 p.m. EDT on Sept. 22, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft came within 10,711 miles (17,237 km) of Antarctica, just south of Cape Horn, Chile, before following a route north over the Pacific Ocean.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
OSIRIS-REx, NASA's asteroid sample return spacecraft, successfully used Earth’s gravity on Friday to slingshot itself onto a path toward the asteroid Bennu, for a rendezvous next August.
At 12:52 p.m. EDT on Sept. 22, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft came within 10,711 miles (17,237 km) of Antarctica, just south of Cape Horn, Chile, before following a route north over the Pacific Ocean.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
