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How do you touch down and sample an asteroid?

Just over four years ago, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft — short for Origins, Spectral interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer — set out for the small, top-shaped asteroid called Bennu to collect a sample from its surface. But that simple concept in words belies the physical challenges of these small asteroids that scientists and engineers had to overcome.

Researchers at the ÃØÃÜÖ±²¥ Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, along with colleagues in Canada and across the United States, played a critical part in developing a solution.

Watch the video below to find out how they used and autonomous technology that together helped make the sampling mission possible.