OSIRIS-REx Mission: Important Topics for UPSC Exams

What?

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is a NASA asteroid study and sample return mission launched in September 2016.
OSIRIS-REx seeks answers to the questions that are central to the human experience: Where did we come from? What is our destiny?
Asteroids, the leftover debris from the solar system formation process, can answer these questions and teach us about the history of the sun and planets.
Mission : is to study asteroid 101955 Bennu, a carbonaceous asteroid, and return a sample to Earth in 2023 for detailed analysis.

Bennu may contain the molecular precursors to the origin of life and the Earth’s oceans. Bennu is also one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids, as it has a relatively high probability of impacting the Earth late in the 22nd century.
OSIRIS-REx will determine Bennu’s physical and chemical properties, which will be critical to know in the event of an impact mitigation mission.
Finally, asteroids like Bennu contain natural resources such as water, organics, and precious metals.
In the future, these asteroids may one day fuel the exploration of the solar system by robotic and manned spacecraft.

Return and analyze a sample of Bennu’s surface
Map the asteroid
Document the sample site
Measure the orbit deviation caused by non-gravitational forces (the Yarkovsky effect)
Compare observations at the asteroid to ground-based observations

It is the third planetary science mission selected in the New Frontiers program, after Juno and New Horizons.