OSIRIS-REx News
Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx Curator
Volume 8 No. 1 • May 2026
This newsletter marks a major transition for the collection as all allocations to the mission sample analysis team (SAT) have ceased and we have completed processing for the sample transfer to the Canada Space Agency, which were both major mission and collection milestones. Thus, our allocation support work has fully shifted to fulfilling approved/selectable sample requests from the broader scientific community.
As part of the conclusion of the sample analysis phase of the mission, SAT members have recently returned the majority of the mission OSIRIS-REx samples and will return the final mission samples on a defined timetable. Work to process samples returned by the mission SAT has consumed, and will continue to consume for the coming months, a lot of bandwidth for our team. We anticipate announcing an even greater bounty of returned samples in the public catalog with the fall newsletter. These may be searched in the catalog using the "Sample Returned from Investigator" drop-down menu and selecting "Yes." The samples returned from investigators are available for the whole community to request. We encourage the community to consider requesting these samples since they do not require making new Bennu samples non-pristine – currently these samples include many Bennu samples mounted on SEM studs, relatively small mass aggregate samples, and numerous other types of small mass samples (Figures 1 and 2).
The OSIRIS-REx curation team has continued to expand the breadth and depth of the NASA OSIRIS-REx catalog – this newsletter includes the fourth update of the catalog since its initial publication in March 2024. In this update, we announce 214 samples/splits that have been returned by investigators, which, at this point, are all from the mission SAT. In addition, there are 50 newly announced samples processed by the curation team plus additional sample splits of pre-existing samples processed by the curation team.
We have continued to slowly and steadily X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) scan samples under pristine conditions. In the next year or so, we are shifting towards XCT scanning more moderately sized particles, which can be more readily
allocated to fulfill sample requests. XCT scans are a valuable resource for understanding Bennu particles while keeping them curation pristine. XCT scans collected on OSIRIS-REx samples for catalog development are available upon request – both
as tiff stack videos that are viewable with a broad range of available video software and/or as XCT data cubes that can be analyzed with specialized software. We are announcing XCT scans of an additional 13 particles since the last newsletter
for a collection total of 72 particles XCT scanned under pristine conditions (some of which have subsequently been subdivided and/or allocated).
The following samples were XCT scanned since the last newsletter:
OREX-800057-0; OREX-800095-0;
OREX-800106-0; OREX-800136-0; OREX-800161-0; OREX-800195-0; OREX-800256-0; OREX-800218-0; OREX-800219-0; OREX-800157-0; OREX-800216-0; OREX-800238-0; OREX-800258-0; OREX-800175-0; OREX-800097-1; OREX-800097-2; OREX-800097-9.
The following additional
particles have been newly designated as "not to be XCT scanned" per the collection conservation plan: OREX-800061-0; OREX-800090-0; OREX-800101-0; OREX-800148-0; OREX-800155-0; OREX-800209-0; OREX-800233-0; OREX-800249-0.
With this newsletter release, we have updated and added documents that can be found on the 'Sample Request Documents and Forms' OSIRIS-REx webpage. These new documents include the 'OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Bennu Sample Investigator's Guidebook', which we have established now that we have fully transitioned to community sample requests. In addition, we have added forms for community members to use when they return samples to the collection. We have updated the Sample Conservation Plan, including an updated calculation of the mass of sample that can be made non-pristine for allocation this year, now that all allocations to the mission SAT have concluded. We have also made minor updates to the 'Checklist to Request and OREx Sample Request Form' including highlighting that polished thin and thick sections do not require large sample masses (e.g., 0.300 grams – all polished sections in the OSIRIS-REx catalog were made from smaller sample masses than this); JSC Curation has successfully made numerous polished sections from particles, chips, or aggregates of small-to-moderate masses (e.g., 0.010–0.050 grams).
The next sample request deadline for OSIRIS-REx samples curated by NASA will be Wednesday July 1, 2026. For our sample request deadline cadence, this is the first deadline for 2026 (although the last deadline was in January 2026 that counted for 2025 because it was postponed due to the U.S. federal government shutdown last year). The curation team is actively working on processing samples for approved sample requests from the second and third review rounds.
If you are considering submitting a sample request for this round and have questions, please feel welcome to reach out via email to the collection curator (Dr. Nicole Lunning).
