NASA's first ever asteroid mission will launch this week, despite a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explosion last Thursday in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

On Thursday, September 8, NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, where this spacecraft will travel through deep space to an asteroid known as Bennu. The launch will commence at 7:05 P.M. EDT, where the space probe will be perched on top of an Atlas V rocket.

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NASA officials revealed in a Twitter update that the OSIRIS REx mission will continue despite the nearby rocket explosion. Upon assessment and checking, the rocket and spacecraft is very secure which is about 1.1 miles away from the SpaceX explosion.

If successfully launched, the OSIRIS-REx will be space bound for Bennu, which is 1,650 feet across in July 2018. The lander will obtain a good chunk of asteroid deposit within two years and head back home to return that sample by September 2023.

This $800 million asteroid mission's goal is to find carbon rich asteroids like Bennu and collect precious material to yield a better understanding about the building blocks of life, according to OSIRIS-REx scientists.

According to lead mission scientist, Daniel Scheeres from the University of Colorado, Bennu is considered to be a primordial, organic rich asteroid that exists inside our solar system for millions of years. The team believes that Bennu possesses distilled gas from the early stages of the solar system, which is why this asteroid has been the target for this mission.

Apart from this, observations can also help scientists predict if Bennu poses a threat to our planet since this ancient space rock can apparently hit Earth, later in the 22nd century. Scheeres adds that when OSIRIS-REx visits Bennu, it can also obtain data about its orbit, which can also reveal the forces behind its trajectory in our solar system in the next 200 years.