A space mission that will reveal the secrets of an asteroid made of metal is almost ready for launch.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, bound for the same-name asteroid Psyche, is scheduled to lift off on Oct. 13, 2023 at 10:19 a.m. EDT (14:19 UTC). The launch was originally scheduled for Oct. 5, but the mission team needed extra time to verify parameters used to control the spacecraft’s thrusters.
Psyche will blast off from Kennedy Space Center, Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. About an hour after launch, the Falcon Heavy’s upper stage will release Psyche, kicking off a six-year journey to the outer reaches of the main asteroid belt.
Arriving in 2029, Psyche will be the first space mission to study a metal world. The potato-shaped asteroid Psyche is thought to be made of 30% to 60% metal by volume.
Psyche could be the core of an ancient, rocky world that was only partially formed when it collided with other objects and lost its outer shell. In this scenario, the Psyche mission would give us a rare look at a planetary core, which normally lies hidden beneath the surface of a world like our own.
It will be equally interesting if scans determine that Psyche is not a planetary core. Such a finding would mean the asteroid is a new type of object from the Solar System’s early days.
In either case, the Psyche mission is a journey into our past. But before the spacecraft can do any science, it has a journey of its own to complete.