NASA Spacecraft to Travel to Strange Metal-Rich Asteroid 16 Psych Between Mars and Jupiter In August 2022

(Photo : NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU) This illustration depicts the 140-mile-wide (226-kilometer-wide) asteroid Psyche, the target of NASA’s mission of the same name. Based on data obtained from Earth, scientists believe the asteroid is a mixture of metal and rock.

NASA announced on Tuesday that its Psyche spacecraft will orbit a world that we can only just make out from Earth. The space agency went on to say that the spacecraft will travel the eponymous metal-rich asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, elaborating on its much-hyped mission.

"The target of NASA's Psyche mission - a metal-rich asteroid, also called 16 Psyche, in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter - is an uncharted world in outer space," NASA said in a statement. The space agency added that the asteroid appears as a fuzzy blur from Earth- and space-based telescopes. According to radar data obtained by NASA, scientists believe that it's shaped like a potato and turns on its side.

NASA to Send a Mission to Asteroid Psyche Next Year

The Psyche mission, which is scheduled to launch in August 2022, will go to the odd metal asteroid Psyche, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter's orbits. According to Digital Trends, most of this asteroid's composition has been discovered to contain nickel and iron. Because most asteroids are made up mostly of rock, the researchers are interested in learning whether Psyche may be the core of a developing planet.

Psyche will be equipped with a magnetometer to measure electromagnetic waves and spectrometers to discover what the asteroid comprises to learn more about it.

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The spacecraft will take many years to traverse the 1.5 billion miles to its asteroid target after its launch next year. The Psyche spacecraft is planned to arrive at its target asteroid in late 2025, before reaching its orbit in January 2026. It will begin by orbiting 435 miles from the asteroid's surface in a safe, relatively distant orbit before moving closer to the asteroid over time to allow the scientists to collect more comprehensive data.

"If it turns out to be part of a metal core, it would be part of the very first generation of early cores in our solar system," said Arizona State University's Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator of the Psyche mission, in a statement. "But we don't really know, and we won't know anything for sure until we get there. We wanted to ask primary questions about the material that built planets. We're filled with questions and not a lot of answers. This is real exploration."

According to MIT Technology Review, NASA selected Psyche in 2017 as one of two missions for the space agency's Discovery Program, a set of low-cost missions to solar system destinations. Psyche, which was led in part by Arizona State University, had a $450 million development budget to ensure it could reach deep space. However, when a spaceship gets further away from the sun, its solar arrays have a harder time capturing sunlight and powering its ion engines. As a result, Psyche tends to slow down when it passes by Mars. 

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