'Exactly Perfect'! NASA Hails Asteroid Sample-Return Mission's Launch

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on its way to an intriguing asteroid named Bennu, and Dante Lauretta couldn't be happier. Lauretta, the mission's principal investigator, said he was on pins and needles leading up to Thursday evening's (Sept. 8) launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. "We got everything just exactly perfect," Lauretta, who's based at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL), said during a postlaunch news conference Thursday night from NASA's Kennedy