NASA Launches Spacecraft to Explore Psyche Asteroid

NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission launched on early Friday, sending the mission’s advanced spacecraft on a six-year, 2.2 billion-mile mission to one of the solar system’s 12 largest asteroids.

The craft was launched by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful in the company’s fleet. It successfully launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:19 a.m. local time.

NASA hopes to study the chemical composition of the asteroid and its magnetic field. Despite how much attention the asteroid has gathered, astronomers still have a lot of questions regarding Psyche. Officials particularly want to dig into its composition.

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A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Oct. 13, 2023. The spacecraft will travel to the metallic asteroid Psyche, where it will enter orbit in 2029 and be the first spacecraft to explore a metal-rich asteroid. (Aubrey Gemignani/NASA via AP)

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Artist's concept of the Psyche spacecraft, which will conduct a direct exploration of an asteroid thought to be a stripped planetary core. Image credit: Maxar/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech

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The massive asteroid 16 Psyche is the subject of a new study by SwRI scientist Tracy Becker, who observed the object at ultraviolet wavelengths.

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NASA’S PSYCHE SPACECRAFT IS SEEN ON ITS WAY TO THE VACUUM CHAMBER AT THE AGENCY’S JET PROPULSION LABORATORY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

Psyche is an M-type asteroid, the classification given to metallic asteroids. However, the method astronomers use to determine the makeup of celestial objects, spectroscopy, which examines the way light is split coming off an object, can be used to determine if something is metallic, but not the specific metals it is made of.

A 2020 study used computer simulations and observations about the impact craters to help astronomers narrow down the choices, although they can’t be sure. The best guess is that it's primarily made up of Monel, a mix of mainly nickel and copper, which is thought to be common in space.

The spacecraft is expected to arrive at the Psyche asteroid by 2029, after receiving an assist from Mars’ gravity in 2026. At that time, NASA hopes to learn definitively what the asteroid is made of.

Regardless of what specific metals Psyche is made of, it is undoubtedly valuable. Estimates even using relatively cheap metals like iron suggest Psyche would be worth $10 quintillion ($10,000,000,000,000,000,000 or ten million trillion) if it were somehow brought to Earth, mined and sold at current market prices.

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However, doing so would undoubtedly crash the markets for those materials, decreasing the overall value. That is before considering the costs of capturing a moving asteroid and moving it near Earth, billions of miles away, a feat that would be impossible with today’s technologies, no matter the cost.

Still, some companies do have plans to mine asteroids, though they likely will start with smaller and closer asteroids within the next couple of decades - if technology advances sufficiently.

NASA expects to spend a relatively tame $1.2 billion on the Psyche mission, $131 million of that went to SpaceX for launching the spacecraft.

Blast Off! NASA Launches Spacecraft Toward Psyche Asteroid