OSIRIS-REx Technology: OVIRS

Released Monday, July 25, 2016

ID: 12309

OSIRIS-REx will use its visible and infrared spectrometer (OVIRS) to study the chemical composition of Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid that may hold clues to the origins of life.

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Complete transcript available.

NASA is sending the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to explore near-Earth asteroid Bennu, a carbon-rich body that may contain clues to the origins of life. When OSIRIS-REx arrives at Bennu in 2018, it will spend over a year orbiting the asteroid and studying it with a suite of remote sensing instruments. The OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer, or OVIRS, will look at Bennu's spectral signature to detect organics and other minerals. After OVIRS and its fellow instruments have thoroughly surveyed Bennu, OSIRIS-REx will descend to the asteroid's surface, collect a sample, and return it to Earth in 2023.

Learn more about the OVIRS instrument.
Visit the OSIRIS-REx mission website.

Animated diagram of the OVIRS spectrometer, tracing the path of light through the instrument.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/CI Lab/Walt Feimer

The OVIRS instrument will allow OSIRIS-REx to hunt for organic molecules on asteroid Bennu.

Credit: NASA/Goddard/Dan Gallagher

OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (OVIRS)
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Bill Hrybyk

Engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center put the finishing touches on OVIRS.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Bill Hrybyk

For More Information

See NASA.gov

Planets & Moons

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Scientists
- Dennis Reuter (NASA/GSFC)
- Amy A. Simon (NASA/GSFC)
Interviewees
- Dennis Reuter (NASA/GSFC)
- Amy A. Simon (NASA/GSFC)
Producers
- Dan Gallagher (USRA)
- Katrina Jackson (USRA)
Narrator
- Dan Gallagher (USRA)
Editors
- Dan Gallagher (USRA)
- Katrina Jackson (USRA)
Animators
- Chris Meaney (HTSI)
- Walt Feimer (HTSI)
- Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA)
- Lisa Poje (USRA)
- Michael Lentz (USRA)
Videographers
- Rob Andreoli (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
- John Caldwell (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
Project support
- Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)