Set to launch next year, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will explore a metal-rich asteroid of the same name in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Set to launch next year, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will explore a metal-rich asteroid of the same name in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
A major component of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has been delivered to the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the phase known as assembly, test, and launch operations is now underway. Over the next year, the spacecraft will finish assembly and undergo rigorous checkout and testing before it’s shipped to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for an August 2022 launch to the main asteroid belt.
This illustration depicts the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, which is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU