After a number of delays, the Psyche mission appears ready to go as the spacecraft sits at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch is scheduled for tomorrow at 10:16 a.m. EDT.
The spacecraft will not reach the metal-rich asteroid Psyche until 2029. It will then orbit the asteroid for about two years collecting data to learn more about an object that astronomers believe may contain clues about the formation of the rocky planets closest to the Sun.
The scientific goals of the mission are to:
- Understand a previously unexplored building block of planet formation: iron cores.
- Look inside terrestrial planets, including Earth, by directly examining the interior of a differentiated body, which otherwise could not be seen.
- Explore a new type of world. For the first time, examine a world made not of rock and ice, but metal.
NASA has a good track record this years with asteroid missions, so let’s hope the positive track record continues with tomorrow’s launch.
Update: Bad weather had delayed the launch until Friday, October 13th.
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