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discovery-missions-v3

NASA is preparing for a pair of new asteroid-exploration missions, which will launch in the early on 2020s. These missions are part of the Discovery Programme, which seeks to investigate remnants of the early solar organisation in a somewhat low-toll way. Past Discovery missions include Mars Pathfinder, Stardust, and Dawn. The first mission to launch will be dubbed Lucy, a probe built by Lockheed-Martin to study Jupiter'southward so-called Trojan asteroids. The second is known equally Psyche and aims to visit a worldlet made nearly entirely out of metal.

Since Lucy is the first mission on the docket, the details are a chip more than fleshed out. Lockheed will base the pattern on the recently launched OSIRIS-REx mission, which is currently en road to the asteroid Bennu. The plan is to launch Lucy in October 2021 for an efficient transfer to Jupiter's orbit. Along the way information technology will stop off at a main belt asteroid in 2025, merely the final destination is a swarm of asteroids trapped by Jupiter'southward gravity.

Trojan asteroids are small celestial bodies that are gravitationally bound in locations along the orbit of a planet at the leading (L4) and trailing (L5) Lagrange points. A number of planets have "Trojan asteroids," including World, although we only have one. Jupiter has thousands of Trojan bodies because of its massive gravity. Nosotros don't know for certain what these objects are — they might exist captured objects from the Kuiper Belt, or even comets from the Oort Cloud. Most astronomers believe their presence along the orbit of Jupiter in such large numbers indicates they are leftovers from the creation of the planets. Lucy will written report vi of these objects between 2027 and 2033.

There are fewer details on Psyche, just it might be even cooler than Lucy. Psyche shares a name with its target, the asteroid 16 Psyche. As the name implies, information technology was only the 16th small-scale planet discovered way dorsum in 1852. The probe will brand it way out to 16 Psyche in 2030 after launching in Oct of 2023. This is an intriguing target for report, because not only is 16 Psyche big at over 150 miles in diameter, it'southward incredibly massive. This object contains nigh one% of the mass of the entire asteroid chugalug.

NASA scientists believe that xvi Psyche is almost entirely composed of nickel-iron metal. It'southward essentially an exposed planetary core that was blasted free of its rocky home in a long-by standoff, something that was mutual in the early on solar system. This will be our first chance to physically study a planetary core not unlike our own in detail.

The hardware specifics of Psyche accept yet to exist determined, but NASA has two years longer to get that figured out. The adjacent club of business organization in the Discovery programme is to go Lucy ready for launch.