HAC member Ted Forte has been selected as an OSIRIS-REx Ambassador. The mission of this ambassador program is to provide communities with knowledgeable volunteers to provide mission updates and information to the public about the asteroid sample return mission that is being managed from right here in Tucson. Ted is already a Solar System Ambassador, a volunteer program administered by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena CA. The OSIRIS-REx Ambassador program is managed out of the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program; it will travel to a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu and bring a small sample back to Earth for study. The mission is scheduled for launch in late 2016. The spacecraft should reach its asteroid target in 2018 and return a sample to Earth in 2023.
The OSIRIS-REx Science Processing and Operations Center is at the University of Arizona. Overall mission management is being provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. The spacecraft is being built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, CO.
Ted can be reached at and is available to schedule talks at your school, civic organization, or youth group.