OSIRIS-APEX

After making history as the first U.S. mission to bring a piece of an asteroid back to Earth, OSIRIS-REx will continue on as OSIRIS-APEX. The new mission will bring the spacecraft to a different kind of asteroid to enrich our understanding of the solar system and potentially hazardous asteroids even further.

Electronic press kit

Dani Mendoza DellaGiustina

Principal Investigator

Dani DellaGiustina is an assistant professor of planetary science in the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. She is deputy principal investigator and image processing lead scientist for the OSIRIS-REx mission. Once the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft delivers its asteroid sample to Earth, she will take over as principal investigator for OSIRIS-APEX. Her research interests include the surface and near-surface structure of small airless worlds across the solar system. She is especially interested in water distribution through the solar system. For her investigations, she develops and uses remote-sensing and geophysical instruments deployed by spacecraft. She also tests and validates instrumentation techniques in extreme Earth environments that are similar to landscapes on other worlds.

Michael Nolan

Deputy Principal Investigator

Michael Nolan is a research professor at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the deputy principal investigator of the OSIRIS-APEX mission. His primary responsibility is organizing the OSIRIS-APEX science team. His research focuses on the physical processes of asteroid evolution and their connection to meteorites. From 2006 to 2015, he led the Planetary Radar Program at the Arecibo Observatory and uses that data to better understand the processes that affect asteroid evolution.

Anjani Polit

Mission Implementation and Control Officer

Anjani Polit is the OSIRIS-APEX mission implementation and control officer and the OSIRIS-REx implementation systems engineer. During OSIRIS-REx operations around asteroid Bennu, Anjani led the OSIRIS-REx science planning team and was the vice chair of the sample site selection board. For OSIRIS-APEX, Anjani manages instrument operations and spacecraft observation planning and oversees daily operations at the mission's Science Processing and Operations Center. She also provides management oversight for science operations and science team finances, scheduling and resource allocation.

Dathon Golish

Mission Instrument and Observation Scientist

Dathon Golish leads the OSIRIS-APEX observation planning team in coordination with instrument scientists, science team members and spacecraft engineers. He is responsible for ensuring that instrument observations meet the mission scientific objectives at the asteroid. He also manages required calibrations and subsequent analyses with instrument scientists to ensure the continued health and fidelity of the OSIRIS-APEX scientific payloads. His research interests have spanned a range of topics over 15 years in instrument design, imaging and image processing.

Bashar Rizk

OCAMS Instrument Scientist

Bashar Rizk is the instrument scientist for OCAMS, OSIRIS-APEX's primary scientific imaging system. His main responsibility is overseeing OCAMS operation to ensure it produces valid data. He has worked as an applied physicist in a university research and development setting for over 40 years. Thirty-five of those years have been at the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, working on spacecraft and remote sensing system design, development, test, calibration, planning and operations, as well as data processing and analysis.

Rose Garcia

Deputy OCAMS Instrument Scientist

Rose Garcia is the OCAMS deputy instrument scientist for OSIRIS-APEX. Her duties include assisting in planning instrument campaigns; overseeing instrument performance and calibrations; assessing and validating observational data; and supporting contingency strategies during unexpected events or anomalies. She previously was an observational astronomer for the Catalina Sky Survey and formed part of the team tasked with planning the science observations of Bennu with OSIRIS-REx.