In 2021, our NASAPersevere Mars rover landed and our Ingenuity helicopter took flight. Two asteroid missions launched to the skies, and another began its journey home to Earth. A look back at highlights for our NASAScience planetary missions:
August 11, 2021: OSIRIS-REx Provides Insight into Asteroid Bennu’s Future OrbitAsteroid Bennu, the destination of our OSIRIS-REx mission, is classified as a hazardous near-Earth asteroid.
The first cored sample of Mars rock is visible inside a titanium sample collection tube in this from the Sampling and Caching System Camera of NASA’s Perseverance rover. The image was taken on Sept. 6, 2021 , prior to the system attaching and sealing a metal cap onto the tube. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | >On Sept. 1, NASA’s Perseverance rover unfurled its arm, placed a drill bit at the Martian surface, and drilled about 2 inches, or 6 centimeters, down to extract a rock core.
Several craters in Arabia Terra are filled with layered rock, often exposed in rounded mounds. The bright layers are roughly the same thickness, giving a stair-step appearance.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with the Lucy spacecraft aboard is seen in this 2 minute and 30 second exposure photograph as it launches from Space Launch Complex 41, Saturday, Oct. 16, 2021, at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls | >On October 16, the Lucy mission launched from Kennedy Space Center. Lucy will travel for six years before it reaches its destination: Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.
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