Asteroid sample returns to Utah desert September 24

OSIRIS-REx is a NASA spacecraft that lifted off September 8, 2016, on an Atlas V 411 Rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It traveled for 2 years where it intercepted the asteroid Bennu. It mapped and studied the asteroid for 2 years, did a touch-and-go landing where it retrieved samples, and then began its 200 million-mile return to Earth. On September 24, 2023, it will drop those samples onto the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The DOD testing range is roughly 105 minutes from Park City, UT on I-80 as you head west to Wendover. Dr. Jason Dworkin, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the project scientist for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, explains the mission.