Dante Loretta

We'll begin asteroid operations in November of 2018, and we actually can't leave until March of 2021, because we've gotta wait for those orbits to line up again.

And then it's a two and a half year cruise home with the samples back on Earth in September of 2023.

about 19 and a half years after that first call from Mike in 2004.

And then we get another two years of money to analyze the sample and actually do all the science that I was asked to write up in 2004.

So here's just a quick view of what we'll do at the asteroid.

So we get there, we start doing some flybys to get a good look at it.

I like this view because it kind of gives you a sense of scale.

The asteroid's about 500 meters in diameter, about 1,800 feet, kind of like the size of Push Ridge.

It's about the size of our asteroid.

And the spacecraft's about the size of an SUV.

So we're going to spend a couple of years mapping this object.

We're going to then find areas that look interesting where we think we want to collect the sample and do high resolution characterization of those.

And then ultimately,

tentatively July of 2020, we will actually send the spacecraft down to make contact with the asteroid surface.

We will deploy this TAGSAM device, which I mentioned it was like a vacuum cleaner.

You know how your vacuum cleaner works, it creates a low pressure area inside that pulls the air in.

There's no air in the asteroid, it's in vacuum.

So we bring our own air.

That's what these things are.

These are bottles full of nitrogen gas.