NASA is testing a new spacecraft to explore asteroids

The final stage of testing NASA’s spacecraft, which will explore asteroids, has begun.

Maxar Technologies built the “Psyche” spacecraft. He is now at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The spacecraft will be carried by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket and will be launched in August 2022 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The solar-powered spacecraft will explore an asteroid called 16Psyche, which is located in the main asteroid belt of the solar system between Mars and Jupiter, according to Forbes.

The spacecraft should reach the asteroid in January 2026. It will spend at least 21 months in its orbit, conducting mapping surveys and studying the strange properties of this celestial body.

16Psyche is located 370 million kilometers from Earth, in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and is about 226 kilometers wide.

But the asteroid’s peculiarity is not only its large size. Psyche 16 has an oddly high mineral content, making it one of the most interesting and valuable asteroids known to astronomers. It was discovered in 1852.

Images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope indicate that Psyche 16 is not made of rock or ice, like most asteroids, but that it is made of iron and nickel.

It is believed that these are the remains of the planet’s core, the formation of which was not completed. Some scholars speculate that due to the mineral content, Psyche 16 might be worth up to 10 quintillion US dollars.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory now houses a Solar Electric Rocket Engine (SEP) chassis the size of a pickup truck. This structure will make up 80% of all equipment on the Psyche Space Station. Over the next twelve months, the vehicle will be assembled and tested, after which it will be dispatched to Florida.