NASA Psyche Mission_ Charting a Metallic World

The NASA Psyche Mission is a space exploration project that aims to study a unique metal-rich asteroid named Psyche. The mission is set to launch on October 5, 2023, and will be the first to study the metal world of 16 Psyche
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. The asteroid is one of the ten most massive asteroids in the main asteroid belt and is made almost entirely of nickel-iron metal, which is unusual for an asteroid
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. The spacecraft will travel for 4.6 years, including a Mars gravity assist flyby, before arriving at Psyche in August 2029. Once there, it will spend 20 months in orbit mapping and studying the asteroid's properties
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. The scientific goals of the mission are to gain insights into planetary formation, understand the interior of terrestrial planets like Earth, and examine a world that is made largely of metal
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. The mission is also of interest to the nascent asteroid mining community, which seeks to learn about the potential value harbored by these relatively rare, metallic asteroids
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. The spacecraft's solar-electric propulsion chassis will be built by Maxar (formerly SSL) with a payload that includes an imager, magnetometer, and a gamma-ray spectrometer
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. The mission is led by Arizona State University, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is responsible for mission management, operations, and navigation
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