Update: October, 13, 11:17 a.m. ET: Psyche is finally in space. The Falcon Heavy lifted off on time, sending the probe on its 2.2 billion-mile journey to a highly metallic asteroid.
Wedged between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, the main asteroid belt contains over 1 million rocky objects, but perhaps few of them are as intriguing as Psyche. The metal-rich asteroid might have once been an ancient planetary building block that was stripped of its outer rocky shell as our solar system came to be.…
NASA’s mission to a metal-rich asteroid is back on track after a minor setback. Psyche is now all set to launch on October 12.
A week before it was set to launch to a distant metal rich asteroid, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is forced to remain grounded until the space agency resolves an issue with its thrusters.
The Lucy spacecraft is getting closer to its first asteroid encounter, a small, stony celestial body that was recently added to the mission’s itinerary.
NASA is going to store a pair of spacecraft at a facility, awaiting a second chance to go to space should the agency find a new purpose for them.