Asteroid-Bound NASA Spacecraft Psyche to Probe Earth’s Origins, Test Optical Communications

The NASA spacecraft Psyche, designed for a six-year journey to a metal-rich asteroid 2.2 billion miles away, was launched aboard a SpaceX rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, the agency announced. 

Psyche’s voyage, NASA’s first mission to a metallic asteroid, aims to probe further Earth’s origins and to test the agency’s Deep Space Optical Communications featuring higher bandwidth that future space missions could adopt. The spacecraft is expected to reach its namesake 173-mile-wide asteroid by August 2029 and orbit around it for a 26-month scientific exploration, NASA said.

According to Nicola Fox, the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s associate administrator, the agency’s first metallic asteroid mission could offer a better understanding of Earth’s inaccessible metal core and the planet’s formation.

Unlike most asteroids, which are either icy or rocky, Psyche’s core is high in iron-nickel content that scientists believe may be part of an early planet’s building block.

Psyche is expected to demonstrate its optical communications technology about three weeks from its launch, the first NASA high-data-rate optical or laser communications test beyond the Moon, the agency disclosed.  

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