<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"NASA gave the go-ahead to start construction of the first asteroid-bound spacecraft on Wednesday, which is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida during the Fall of 2016.\nOSIRIS-REx will land on an asteroid named Bennu, which comes close to Earth in 2018. The spacecraft will spend a year exploring the asteroid, and will bring about two ounces of soil samples back to Earth.\nSee also: Solar Flare Captured in Stunning NASA Video\nDante Lauretta, a planetary science professor at the University of Arizona who is serving as principal investigator for the mission, told\u00A0Mashable that there has already been a decade's worth of planning just to get to the point where they were ready to build the spacecraft, and that the timeline from here on out is \"perfect.\" \nPart of that planning involved selecting the best asteroid. \u201CThere\u2019s something like 700,000 asteroids in the solar system,\" Lauretta said, \"and we had to pick one to send a spacecraft to.\"\nFirst, the team eliminated asteroids that were too far away to be practical. That got the number down to a few hundred. Then, they looked at the size. The team wants the craft to have room to roam, and smaller asteroids spin so quickly that a landing would be almost impossible, so they looked at asteroids with a 200-meter diameter.\nThe science team told Lauretta and company that they were also searching for a carbon-rich space rock that might be able to help them understand how an asteroid could have given rise to life on Earth. That led them to Bennu.\nThe asteroid is on the opposite side of the sun right now, but its orbit takes about 1.2 years \u2014 meaning it crosses Earth's orbit once every six years. Bennu actually has a 0.0005% chance of hitting our planet in 2018, according to Lauretta. \nThat might seem like a minuscule number, but it's a lot closer than the vast majority of asteroids in our solar system ever get.\nThe mission is meant to help NASA better understand asteroids, and to help determine which ones might be suitable for future landings. \"The initiative brings together the best of NASA\u2019s science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve President Obama\u2019s goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025,\" the space agency says.\nIf the schedule doesn't run into any \u00A0hiccups, OSIRIS-REx should be back on Earth by 2023. Parts of the spacecraft are being constructed in different areas of the U.S., from Greenbelt, Md., to Tucson, Ariz.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/04/10/nasa-asteroid-spacecraft/>