NASA Launches Psyche Mission to Explore Mysterious Metal World in the Solar System

NASA’s Psyche mission, the first mission to a world made mostly of metal, has successfully lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission aims to explore the 16 Psyche asteroid and find out whether it is the exposed core of an early planetary building block from the beginning of the solar system. Psyche will travel about 2.2 billion miles over the next six years to reach the asteroid, which is located in the outer part of the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This mission marks the first time that scientists will study an object of this kind up close. Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche’s principal investigator, expressed excitement about the opportunity to explore a world with a metal surface, noting that there are not many completely unexplored types of worlds in our solar system. Ground and space-based telescopes have previously observed Psyche, but scientists do not know what it looks like. The spacecraft will spend three to four months going through initial checks before relying on its new solar electric propulsion system to complete the mission. The spacecraft is expected to arrive at Mars in May 2026 and will use the planet’s gravity to slingshot its trajectory to Psyche. Once there, it will spend 26 months orbiting the asteroid to gather data on its surface and composition.