Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

Poised to embark on a 7-year adventure to Asteroid Bennu and back, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample return spacecraft was moved to the launch pad today aboard its Atlas 5 rocket for liftoff Thursday evening.

This will be the first Cargo Dragon flight featuring a modified trunk that allows it to perform multiple orbital boosts of the International Space Station. SpaceX is targeting liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:45 a.m. EDT (0645 UTC).

An Ariane 5 rocket launched Tuesday with the Arabsat 6B and GSAT 15 communications satellites to broadcast television across the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia and link India with telecom and navigation services. Liftoff from Kourou, French Guiana, occurred at 2134 GMT (4:34 p.m. EST).