Michael Drake knew the OSIRIS-REx mission would be his final achievement as a scientist and as director of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
He may still be part of it, despite his death in September. The OSIRIS-REx team is hoping NASA will allow it to carry some of Drake's cremains into space.
"He appreciated that this would be the capstone of his career," said Dante Lauretta, principal investigator on the mission. "He knew this would be his last hurrah, and he was really proud and excited to be a part of this mission."
Before Lauretta took over, Drake was principal investigator on the project, which at $800 million is the largest contract in UA history.
Drake had expected to see the end of the 14-year mission to a near-Earth asteroid, scheduled to launch in 2016. But on Sept. 21 he died at age 65 while recovering from heart surgery.
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"It was devastating. Our hearts are broken," said Lauretta. "It was like losing your best friend. It's something you can't prepare yourself for."
Now, four months after Drake's death, the OSIRIS-REx team wants the United States' first asteroid-sample return mission to be a success, in honor of the man whose vision made it possible.
"I want to deliver a flawless mission to NASA that excels at every level, achieves amazing science and provides a new paradigm for how you manage cost and schedule in a project like this," Lauretta said. "That was incredibly important to him."
Lauretta, 40, a meteorite scientist and associate professor of cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona, served as deputy principal investigator under Drake but took on increasing duties as Drake underwent a liver transplant and later heart surgery.
"I played probably a more active role" than others in his position normally do, he said, "partly because I believed strongly in the mission and its value, but also because Mike's health was starting to suffer and it fell on me to step into the leadership role when he was unavailable."
The two men had worked side-by-side for almost eight years developing the proposal for the OSIRIS-REx mission.
"We proposed it three times before it was selected," said Lauretta. "We went through a lot together. A lot of plane rides, a lot of late nights. We were really a great team."
The UA was selected by NASA in May to lead this mission after competing with the University of Colorado, which wanted to probe the atmosphere of Venus; and Washington University in St. Louis, which proposed returning a sample from the moon.
The OSIRIS-REx mission plans to look at how this near-Earth asteroid, named 1999 RQ36, is a remnant of our early solar system.
Lauretta said it might lend clues to the origin of life and water on our planet. They believe it to be rich in carbon, possibly loaded with the precursors to life.
NASA sees the mission as a precursor to other goals. "It's robotic missions like these that will pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep-space destinations," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said on the agency's website.
The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, will have four cameras, three of them to be built by the UA. It will take three years for the craft to approach within three miles of the asteroid.
Before the team can collect a 2-ounce sample of the asteroid, it will use the cameras to map the entire object, which is about 1,900 feet in diameter, for six months. A laser altimeter will bounce a beam off the surface and measure the distance.
The asteroid has an orbit of 1.2 years and approaches Earth every six years. Its orbit will bring it close to Earth in 2182, Lauretta said.
He said the data gathered by this mission could be applied to a future mission to deflect an asteroid from hitting Earth.
"It's never been done," he said. "Theoretically, yes we can deflect it. It would require an enormous amount of political cooperation … and a specially designed spacecraft to move the asteroid."
The mission has hired 10 undergraduate students and plans to hire 10 to 20 more. Anna Spitz, education and public-outreach lead on the mission, said Drake was concerned about this aspect of the project.
"He was aware that we need to have younger people who are going to do this, as well as being committed to having opportunities for younger people," she said.
Spitz said Drake prepared for the team's success by making sure everything was in its place.
"He put us on a very secure foundation from the very beginning of this," she said. "In a sense the whole mission is his legacy and is a memorial to him, and all that we do does that."
"You know, it's his vision that's carrying us all along."
Mission program coordinator Ross Dubois had been on the team for only a month when Drake died. But afterward, he said, he could tell something was missing.
"It threw me into the sense of, 'Now what, now what?' for this mission." he said. "The team worked really hard over the next couple of days, and I think they're still going through it, to get by that and get focused on the mission."
At a memorial held for Drake in November, the Lunar and Planetary Lab's off-campus building at 1415 N. Sixth Ave., home of the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, was renamed the Michael J. Drake Building.
Lauretta hopes for an even loftier honor.
"We plan to take a piece of him with us into space," he said. "He was cremated, so some of his ashes. We're working hard to get him on the spacecraft."
IF YOU GO
Dante Lauretta will give a public talk about the OSIRIS-REx mission at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Room N210 of Steward Observatory, 933 N. Cherry Ave.
Following the talk, weather permitting, the Raymond E. White Jr. Reflector in the historic Steward Observatory dome will be open for public viewing.
Admission is free.
Online
The OSIRIS-REx website is at: osiris-rex.lpl.arizona.edu
OSIRIS-REx stands for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer.
Mission timeline
December 2009 - OSIRIS-REx chosen as one of three finalists for NASA's next New Frontiers mission.
May 2011 - University of Arizona awarded contract for OSIRIS-REx mission.
2016 - OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launches.
2019 - Spacecraft approaches asteroid 1999 RQ36.
2023 - Sample of asteroid returns to Earth in capsule at Utah's Test and Training Range.
Former Arizona Daily Star intern Rikki Mitchell wrote this story for a science journalism class at the University of Arizona. You can read more about asteroids and take a tour of the solar system at: www.scicats2.wordpress.com
