NASA's OSIRIS-REx Probe Overcomes Obstacles, Sets Course for New Asteroid

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, now renamed OSIRIS-APEX, will extend its mission to visit the near-Earth asteroid Apophis in 2029, which is expected to make a close flyby closer to Earth than some satellites. The mission aims to study interactions with Earth's gravitational forces and gather data on Apophis' composition and structure. Meanwhile, scientists are struggling to open the sample collection head of OSIRIS-REx to access the remaining asteroid material collected from Bennu.