NASA's Psyche Asteroid Mission Will Launch on a Falcon Heavy Rocket
takyon writes:
Falcon Heavy to launch NASA Psyche asteroid mission
NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX Feb. 28 for the launch of a mission to a large metallic asteroid on the company's Falcon Heavy rocket.
NASA said that it will use a Falcon Heavy to launch its Psyche mission in July 2022 from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The contract is valued at $117 million, which includes the launch itself and other mission-related costs.
Psyche is one of two missions NASA selected in January 2017 for its Discovery program of relatively low-cost planetary science missions. Psyche will use a Mars flyby in 2023 to arrive at its destination, an asteroid also called Psyche, in January 2026. The spacecraft will go into orbit around the asteroid, one of the largest in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The asteroid is primarily made of iron and nickel, and could be the remnant of a core of a protoplanet that attempted to form there before high-speed collisions with other planetesimals broke it apart. Planetary scientists believe that studies of the asteroid Psyche could help them better understand the formation of the solar system.
The Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University, with Maxar the prime contractor for the spacecraft. The launch will also carry two smallsat secondary payloads: Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE), which will study the Martian atmosphere, and Janus, which will study binary asteroids.
Also at TechCrunch.
Previously:
NASA Selects Two Missions to Visit Asteroids
NASA Asteroid Mission -- Metals "Worth" Ten Thousand Quadrillion Dollars
SpaceX Drops Protest of "Lucy" Contract, Gets Double Asteroid Redirection Test Contract
Nasa Contemplates Mission to the Core of a Protoplanet in 2022
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