 An upcoming NASA mission is going to be attempting to roll back time 4.6 billion years ago to when our solar system was at its infancy and just beginning to form. And in order to do this, the most complicated robotic mission that NASA has attempted in years will be occurring. And this is your space pod for August 24th, 2016. Here on tomorrow we're not exactly a fan of acronyms, even though we call our show TMRO. But I digress. The mission that I'm going to be talking about though, I do need to use the acronym to speak on it, simply because it's very complicated if I try to say it all together. And in fact, I wouldn't call this an acronym for this mission. I would call it a bacronym, because there's no way anybody came up with this before the mission was even formulated. The mission is known as the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer, OSIRIS-REx. A name so complicated, I couldn't remember it, so I'm having to do it via voiceover. It's the first interplanetary NASA mission since the Mars orbiter MAVEN was launched in 2013 and one of the most ambitious NASA has ever attempted. OSIRIS-REx will be launched on September 8th, 2016 on an Atlas V-411. Yes, that means a 4 meter payload fairing with one solid rocket booster, an interesting configuration that's only flown three times before. A flyby of Earth in 2017 will allow for OSIRIS-REx to arrive at its target in August 2018, the 500 meter sized asteroid Bennu. So why Bennu? An asteroid. And why Bennu specifically? Asteroids are leftovers of the formation of the solar system. They're like cosmic time capsules, as they've experienced very little influence since they were formed billions of years ago. This allows us a window of insight into what the conditions were like in and around their orbits while the solar system was forming. From our instruments here on Earth, we can see that Bennu is rich in the element carbon, which an asteroid rich specifically in the element carbon is quite the rarity. This carbon, leftover from the formation of the solar system, could allow us to make comparisons to our current solar system and how it once was, improving our models of formation. So how will OSIRIS-REx study Bennu? Well, with a suite of instruments, of course. A group of three cameras will provide data to show us Bennu's surface in high resolution, show the composition of the surface of Bennu, and document the samples that will be collected. A laser altimeter will provide extremely high resolution measurements of the surface of Bennu. A spectrometer will show mineral distribution, and x-ray spectrometer will provide precise measurements of just how much of certain minerals and elements are present as well. But the most exciting instrument, the one that makes this one of NASA's most complicated robotic missions, is known as TAGSAM, Touch and Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism. An arm that extends from the body of the spacecraft, it deploys when OSIRIS-REx descends to the surface of Bennu to capture its sample within 5 seconds, hoping to gather somewhere between 60 grams and 2 kilograms of regolith from the surface of Bennu. That regolith will then be safely sealed and placed within a return capsule that will be deployed back onto the Earth in 2023. Landing in the Utah Test and Training Range, the material within the return capsule will be distributed to laboratories throughout the world, allowing for analysis with the best instruments to be offered here on Earth. Let's thank all of our patrons of tomorrow. These folks are helping crowdfund these space pods. Without their wonderful generosity, we would not be able to do this and spread the science news to everybody throughout the internets. So if you would like to help crowdfund the space pods of tomorrow, head on over to patreon.com. So until the next space pod, keep exploring.