UA faculty, students to take part in $800M NASA asteroid project

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 01:52:35 GMT

By Kimberly Linn

NASA
OSIRIS-REx provides University of Arizona students with unique opportunites.

The University of Arizona recently began preparations for an $800 million space program sponsored by NASA. OSIRIS-REx, short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, an unmanned spacecraft, is expected to depart in September 2016 from Kennedy Space center and approach an Earth-hazardous asteroid to take a sample of its surface. One hundred UA undergraduate students will assist with the program. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is expected to reach the asteroid in October 2019. The spacecraft will return at the Utah Test Range north and west of Salt Lake City at 8 a.m. Sept. 23, 2023, said Michael Drake, head of the UA department of Planetary Sciences. “We have identified the OSIRIS-Rex project as the most exciting and compelling and necessary next project in planetary science,” said Paul Hertz, chief scientist for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Throughout the entire mission, the UA will allow undergraduate students to help work the mission. These students will earn a decent salary, Drake said. Drake will not be particular when assigning students to work on the mission. Students simply have to show an interest and offer something useful. Students who show interest in continuing to lend their services to this program after graduation could conceivably be put on staff as full-time employees, according to Drake. They can build a career while simultaneously getting an education. “We feel very strongly that there is not a distinction between research and teaching, they are kind of seamlessly integrated," Drake said. Along with giving students a unique opportunity, the project will give scientists a better understanding of one of Earth’s biggest threats. The asteroid it will study, is the “most accessible carbonaceous asteroid and the most potentially Earth-hazardous asteroid known,” according to NASA.