It was designed for NASA in the 1970s, and it hasn’t been back to space since the 1990s. But in 2020, it will head to orbit once more.

We’re talking about “the worm.”

It’s a logo that a generation grew up with — a minimalist twisting of red letters that is nicknamed after terrestrial invertebrates. NASA used it from 1975, when it was introduced as part of a cleaner visual redesign for the space agency, to 1992, when it was kicked to the side.

But the familiar yet long unused modern symbol will be seen on the side of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket when two NASA astronauts, Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken, head to the International Space Station, a mission scheduled for the second half of May. They will be the first to launch to orbit from American soil since 2011, and the new old logo was dusted off to commemorate the milestone.

In 1992, Daniel S. Goldin, then NASA’s administrator, decided that the best way to excite people about the future was to harken to the agency’s heady early days. He resurrected an earlier insignia with a different nickname — “the meatball.”