NASA launches OSIRIS-REx, its first asteroid sample return mission. The probe visited 101955 Bennu and returned with samples in September 2023.

OSIRIS-REx was a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission that visited and collected samples from 101955 Bennu, a carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid. The material, returned in September 2023, is expected to enable scientists to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, its initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life on Earth. Following the completion of the primary OSIRIS-REx mission, the spacecraft, renamed as OSIRIS-APEX, began a follow-up mission to asteroid 99942 Apophis.