OSIRIS-APEX: NASA’s Apophis Explorer Mission

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS–REx) mission characterized and collected a sample from asteroid (101955) Bennu. Twenty minutes after releasing its sample return capsule to Earth’s surface on September 24, 2023, the spacecraft diverted into an orbit around the Sun that allows for subsequent close Earth flybys. On this trajectory, the spacecraft will approach Earth alongside asteroid (99942) Apophis in 2029, enabling a follow-on mission to another asteroid with the same unique capabilities that led to OSIRISREx’s groundbreaking scientific results: OSIRIS–Apophis Explorer, or “APEX” [