Sep 16, 2019

This week, OSIRIS-REx celebrated 3 years since launch. On September 8, 2016 the spacecraft departed from Cape Canaveral and began its 7-year roundtrip journey. The mission is nearly half-way through, but significant benchmarks — including sample collection — still await.

OSIRIS-REx also continued operations in Orbital C phase, and has now completed 13 revolutions around Bennu in this orbit.

This last week, the team executed the commands necessary to designate the Medium Gain Antenna (MGA) as the spacecraft’s Safe Mode antenna. A subsequent MGA checkout confirmed that MGA performance is nominal. This configuration will be in place through the rest of the mission.