Tonight, NASA Launches a Mission to Sample an Asteroid... and Bring A Piece of It Back to Earth

On Thursday evening, NASA will attempt the launch for an ambitious mission: OSIRIS-REx, a spacecraft that will go to asteroid, collect a sample, and return it to Earth. Yeah. This mission is cool. OSIRIS-REx is the tortured acronym for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer. The launch window opens Sep. 8, 2016 at 19:05 Eastern (US) time (23:05 UTC). The vehicle is an Atlas V, which is a reliable rocket. If the launch is delayed, that's not a pr...