Q&A with Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator

Inside a month until its next chance to swing into orbit around Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft has weathered unexpectedly “severe” conditions after missing an arrival opportunity in 2010, according to the mission’s project scientist.

The first images beamed back to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft after it briefly landed an asteroid buoyed expectations Wednesday that the probe collected enough samples to meet the mission’s minimum requirement for return to Earth.

The mobile service tower retracts from the Atlas 5 rocket, revealing the 191-foot-tall vehicle for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, carrying the classified NROL-79 national security payload for the U.S. government.