NASA’s Psyche spacecraft to reach metal asteroid in 2026, four years earlier than original plan
NASA’s Discovery Mission to 16 Psyche, a unique metal asteroid, is planned to reach the main asteroid belt in 2026, four years earlier than the original timeline. The asteroid found between Mars and Jupiter is made almost entirely of nickel-iron metal.
Teams at NASA have initially proposed the Psyche mission to launch in 2023, but shortly after the selection in January, the U.S. Space Agency gave the direction to the Psyche team to research earlier opportunities, according to a press release. Now, the launch will take place in the summer of 2022.
“We challenged the mission design team to explore if an earlier launch date could provide a more efficient trajectory to the asteroid Psyche, and they came through in a big way. This will enable us to fulfil our science objectives sooner and at a reduced cost,” Jim Green, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said.
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Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University in Tempe explained that the biggest advantage is the excellent trajectory, ‘which gets us there about twice as fast and is more cost effective.’
The revised trajectory is more efficient, as it eliminates the need for an Earth gravity assist, which ultimately shortens the cruise time. In addition, the new trajectory stays farther from the sun, reducing the amount of heat protection needed for the spacecraft. The trajectory will still include a Mars gravity assist in 2023.
Psyche, an asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, is made almost entirely of nickel-iron metal. As such, it offers a unique look into the violent collisions that created Earth and the terrestrial planets. The Psyche Mission was selected for flight earlier this year under NASA’s Discovery Program, a series of lower-cost, highly focused robotic space missions that are exploring the solar system.
The mission team seeks to determine whether Psyche is the core of an early planet, how old it is, whether it formed in similar ways to Earth’s core, and what its surface is like.
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