What's in a name? For OSIRIS-REx, a lot

摘要

On the evening of Sept. 8, an Atlas 5 is scheduled to launch NASA's latest planetary science mission. That spacecraft will travel to the asteroid Bennu, spending several years there studying the asteroid and collecting samples from its surface before returning to Earth in 2023. Its name: the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx.