NASA has announced two unmanned space missions that have the potential to open new windows on one of the earliest eras in the history of our solar system. It’s a time period less than 10 million years after the birth of Sun. The two missions have been named as Lucy and Psyche which are expected to launch in 2021 and 2023 respectively.
“Lucy will visit a target-rich environment of Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids, while Psyche will study a unique metal asteroid that’s never been visited before,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is what Discovery Program missions are all about – boldly going to places we’ve never been to enable groundbreaking science.”
Lucy is a robotic aircraft set to launch in October 2021 which will arrive at its first destination, a main belt asteroid, in 2025. From 2027 to 2033, Lucy will explore six Jupiter Trojan asteroids. “The Trojans are thought to be relics of a much earlier era in the history of the solar system, and may have formed far beyond Jupiter’s current orbit.”
On the other side, the Psyche mission will explore one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt – a giant metal asteroid, known as 16 Psyche, about three times farther away from the sun than is the Earth. Unlike most other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, this asteroid is thought to be comprised mostly of metallic iron and nickel, similar to Earth’s core.
“The mission will help scientists understand how planets and other bodies separated into their layers – including cores, mantles and crusts – early in their histories.”
“This is an opportunity to explore a new type of world – not one of rock or ice, but of metal,” said Psyche Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University in Tempe. “16 Psyche is the only known object of its kind in the solar system, and this is the only way humans will ever visit a core. We learn about inner space by visiting outer space.”
Psyche, just like Lucy, is also a Robotic mission which is scheduled to be launched in 2023 and will arrive at the asteroid in 2030. During its journey, it will cover Earth gravity assist spacecraft maneuver in 2024 and a Mars flyby in 2025.
“These are true missions of discovery that integrate into NASA’s larger strategy of investigating how the solar system formed and evolved,” said NASA’s Planetary Science Director Jim Green. “We have explored terrestrial planets, gas giants, and a range of other bodies orbiting the sun. Lucy will observe primitive remnants from farther out in the solar system, while Psyche will directly observe the interior of a planetary body. These additional pieces of the puzzle will help us understand how the sun and its family of planets formed, changed over time, and became places where life could develop and be sustained – and what the future may hold.”
