NASA Planetary Scientist Noah Petro dishes on what it took plan the impressive touch-and-go return mission, why much of the ...

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled to return samples of Asteroid Bennu to Earth. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ...

China launches Tianwen-2 mission to sample near Earth asteroid China launched its second planetary exploration mission ...

China embarked on its first mission to retrieve samples from a nearby asteroid, with the nighttime launch of its Tianwen-2 ...

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission traveled to the carbon-rich asteroid Bennu and sent home a small capsule containing a sample in September 2023. Released from the OSIRIS-REx craft, the sample return ...

The OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule contained rock from the asteroid Bennu. NASA/Keegan Barber ...

Tianwen, which means "questions to heaven," is the name given to China's program of robotic Solar System exploration. Tianwen ...

The spacecraft will orbit the asteroid for more than a year doing science and selecting a site before collecting a pristine sample in a pogo-stick like motion. Safely there: University of Arizona ...

Tianwen-2 has an approach similar to NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission which collected samples from the asteroid Bennu and dropped ...

The CZ-3B/E Y110 flew on an eastbound path and launched Tianwen-2 on an Earth escape trajectory. Tianwen-2 will orbit ...