Equals sign? in newspaper article

[_Niels]

I’ve recently begun reading more articles on NHK news, and just now stumbled upon this weird usage of an equals-sign (I think) in an article about the Space X-launch:

“クルードラゴンは31日午後11時半ごろに国際宇宙ステーションに到着する予定です。ＮＡＳＡ＝アメリカ航空宇宙局は、民間企業の有人宇宙船の開発を後押ししていて、今回は「クルードラゴン」の最後の試験として、初めて宇宙飛行士を乗せて宇宙ステーションにドッキングし、その後、地球に帰還します。”

The portion with the ＮＡＳＡ＝, is that a shorthand for a relative clause, in English something like “America’s space-agency NASA […]”? Or am I missing the point and it’s just a 2-kanji? Cause it doesn’t look like one

Article-link: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200531/k10012452151000.html?i

[plantron]

Yes. アメリカ航空宇宙局 explains what NASA is.

[_Niels]

Interesting. How do you read that out loud?

[Leebo]

It’s not an equal sign, it’s a double hyphen, and this is basically like saying “NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration)”

You don’t say it or pronounce it at all.

[MegaZeroX]

No one else has said it, but the double hyphen is basically exclusively used to replace an english hyphen or emdash since they found be confused with ー

[jacobalbano]

I’m terribly sad that you beat me to the punch (by six hours no less) because I just learned this from Persona 5 a few days ago. One of the exam questions had to do with Charles-Henri Sanson, or, as rendered in Japanese, シャルル＝アンリ・サンソン.