NASA’s plans to fly a spacecraft past a potentially dangerous asteroid in 2029 will continue, at least for the next year.
After threats of mission cancellation, the OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft received a last-minute allocation of $20 million in the House budget bill to continue basic operations during the next fiscal year. However, the fate of 18 other NASA missions scheduled to stop operations on October 1 remains unclear due to the current government shutdown.
OSIRIS-APEX stands for “Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security: Apophis Explorer.” The mission is scheduled to observe the quarter mile wide (400 meters) asteroid Apophiswhich was once believed to pose a minor threat to Earth during an upcoming close encounter in 2029.
Fortunately, further observations showed that Apophis, named after an ancient Egyptian god associated with chaos, will fly. safely across the Earth. However, it will be very close: its trajectory will take it within the geostationary satellite orbit, about 22,000 miles (36,000 km) away, which could make it visible to the naked eye. But as Apophis periodically crosses the path of our planet, there is still the risk of a direct impact in the distant future.
“Apophis is one of the most attractive near-Earth asteroids we have ever discovered,” DellaGiustina said. “By studying Apophis during and after its encounter with Earth, we have a unique opportunity to understand how close planetary flybys reshape small bodies: from seismic tremors and landslides on the surfaceto changes in rotation and orbit.
However, in May the Trump administration placed OSIRIS-APEX in a list of 19 NASA missions that they intended to cancel, as part of sweeping cuts that would see the agency’s budget slashed by almost 25%from $24.8 billion to $18.8 billion. The fate of the other 18 missions remains uncertain; The US government has been shut down since October 1 after lawmakers in Washington, DC failed to reach an agreement on this year’s fiscal budget.
While OSIRIS-APEX operations in 2026-27 are safe, Congress requires a review of NASA funding each year. This means that the mission, along with other NASA projects, will be reconsidered for funding in the next fiscal year.
DellaGiustina said she is hopeful the funding will continue. The mission was “explicitly named,” he said, in the House and Senate versions of NASA’s fiscal year 2026 budget, thanks to the support of Arizona’s congressional delegation, particularly Sen. Mark Kelly (D), a former NASA astronaut, and Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R), a graduate of the University of Arizona (the institution that runs OSIRIS-APEX and also led OSIRIS-REx).
“Congress recognized the value of keeping our healthy spacecraft and instruments operational as we sail toward Apophis,” DellaGiustina said. “It doesn’t guarantee funding for future years, but it keeps us moving forward and gives us a fighting chance to pull off this once-in-a-lifetime meet.”
The science of the future at risk
While the funding was a relief for the team, it’s not all good news. The science team did not receive any active research funding this year, meaning mission managers (and the early-career researchers they mentor, such as students) cannot perform mission analysis, planning, or science.
DellaGiustina said it was “heartbreaking to have to suspend participation for a year or more.” In 2022, NASA’s latest high-level mission review (a community effort conducted roughly every three years to evaluate the benefits of scientific research) explicitly said that mentoring within the team would be beneficial to the space community.
“This long-duration mission featured an effective career development plan, which would transition junior scientists to more senior roles as the mission progresses,” the senior review statedadding that most of OSIRIS-APEX’s senior management, including DellaGiustina herself, rose through the ranks from previous junior roles at OSIRIS-REx.
Meanwhile, the two missions continue to produce scientific papers each year; Its scientific productivity received praise from the senior review team, which in 2022 noted at least 137 papers produced “revealing important discoveries and ideas about the structure and evolution of a small asteroid.”
Many other papers have been published in the past three years and more about the composition and origin of Bennu will appear soon, DellaGiustina said. It should be noted that a Role of nature in January showed that the original body from which Bennu came had a kind of brine running through it, which included carbonates, the building blocks of life. “The original body may have been similar to an ocean world,” DellaGiustina said.
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