Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight CenterNASAs OSIRIS-REx team received the distinguished Goddard Memorial Trophy for its historical mission of collecting and returning an asteroid sample, helping clinical research on the solar systems origins.NASAs OSIRIS-REx team was chosen as the winner of the National Space Club and Foundations 2024 Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy for their tremendous work on the very first U.S. objective to bring an asteroid sample to Earth. Credit: NASA/Keegan BarberMaking U.S. HistoryFollowing its launch in 2016, the OSIRIS-REx objective made U.S. space history when it became the first U.S. spacecraft to touch an asteroid and catch a sample on October 20, 2020, and once again when it effectively returned with the sample to Earth on September 24, 2023.”The Mission ContinuesFollowing its effective sample return, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was relabelled OSIRIS-APEX and will now get in a prolonged objective to visit and study near-Earth asteroid Apophis in 2029.OSIRIS-RExs success was made possible by the unique contributions of over 1,000 people from government and objective partners like the science lead at the University of Arizona, the task group at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, the curation team at NASAs Johnson Space Center, spacecraft style, operations, and recovery by Lockheed Martin, assistance and navigation at KinetX, and the launch provider at United Launch Alliance.OSIRIS-REx is the third objective in NASAs New Frontiers Program, handled by NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
