While NASA celebrated the triumphant landing of a capsule brimming with gravel and soil collected from asteroid Bennu, the spacecraft responsible for this delivery had already embarked on a new trajectory.

The robotic explorer, which had been on a seven-year voyage as part of NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex asteroid sample return mission, didn’t get a moment’s rest.

Approximately 20 minutes after releasing the capsule containing fragments from Bennu, the spacecraft engaged its thrusters to veer away from Earth’s atmosphere, officially commencing a fresh mission known as OSIRIS-Apex, Mashable reported.

This new expedition is bound for yet another asteroid that was once a source of concern for potential Earth impacts.

If all proceeds as planned, the spacecraft, affectionately referred to as O-Rex by numerous scientists and engineers, will rendezvous with Apophis, a rocky near-Earth asteroid, in the year 2029.

Written by staff