HUNTSVILLE — The U.S. Space & Rocket Center is partnered with the NASA Planetary Missions Program Office to sponsor a free talk tonight on the OSIRIS-REx mission. The discussion begins at 6 p.m. in the Intuitive Planetarium at the Davidson Center.

OSIRIS-REx launched Sept. 8, 2016, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. In 2018, it reached its destination – the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, where it collected samples from an asteroid for the first time in history.

The mission is due to return Sept. 24.

Intuitive Planetarium Director David Weigel and OSIRIS-REx principal investigator Dante Lauretta with discuss the mission.

Lauretta, a regent’s professor of Planetary and Cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, will discuss the historic touch-and-go sampling mission and how it is helping understand the evolution of the solar system.

Tickets are not required, but seating in the Intuitive Planetarium is available on a first-come, first-served basis.