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UA Engineering Students, Alumni Mission Critical to OSIRIS-REx

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Systems engineer Bradley Williams with the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft in the Lockheed Martin cleanroom.

UA Engineering Students, Alumni Mission Critical to OSIRIS-REx

Sept. 6, 2016
From modeling the asteroid to steering the spacecraft, UA engineering students are helping ensure all systems are go.

When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft lifts off aboard an Atlas V rocket from the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, dozens of UA College of Engineering students and alumni will be on hand to witness their handiwork. Others will be at ground control monitoring and steering the spacecraft.

OSIRIS-REx has given a young engineer like me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a hands-on role on a space mission," said Sara Balram Knutson, who earned her UA master's in engineering management in 2012 and is now a senior operations engineer for the OSIRIS-REx mission at the UA.