The US space agency has extended six more missions.
After Bennu, NASA’s “Osiris Rex” probe is supposed to explore the asteroid Apophis. And the US space agency NASA said that the mission of the probe, which is currently on its way to Earth with a sample of Bennu, will be extended for at least nine years. The mission, then called “Osiris-Apex”, should be directed into orbit around Apophis after the previous plan was completed.
According to calculations, an asteroid with a diameter of about 370 meters will fly at a distance of about 32,000 km from Earth in 2029, and therefore it can be studied closely for the first time. “Osiris-Rex” was the first American rocket in space history to take a sample from an asteroid in 2020. The Bennu sample is scheduled to deliver the probe to Earth in September 2023. “Osiris Rex” (abbreviation: Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) in September 2016 from Cape Canaveral Spaceport and arrived at Bennu about two years later.
In addition to “Osiris-Rex”, NASA has also expanded the missions of six other missions: the “Mars Odyssey”, “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter”, “Maven”, “Curiosity” and “InSight”, the Lunar probe. Orbital Reconnaissance Vehicle and the New Horizons mission originally sent to Pluto.
