Report: NASA Selects New Mission Called "LUCY And PSYCHE" For Strange Asteroids
The space agency has selected projects called Lucy and Psyche that will unravel the mysterious of some seriously bizarre asteroids.
According to SPACE, NASA will attempt through the project called Lucy and Psyche in its Discovery program, which funds highly focussed space missions to destinations throughout the solar system.
The main motif of Lucy project is to investigate the Trojan asteroids with the share of orbit with Jupiter. On the other hand, Psyche will journey to the asteroid belt to study huge metallic asteroids named 16 psyches that reside there.
According to NASA Science Mission Directorate at Washington DC," This is what Discovery program missions are all about, boldly going to place"
As per the report from NASA, Lucy is scheduled to launch in October 2021. The mission probe will visit an asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in 2025. And after that, it will go on to study six Trojan asteroids from 2027 to 2033.
Two streams of Trojan asteroids are in the universe. One trails Jupiter and the other leads the giant planet around the sun. The scientist from Space Agency thinks both streams may be planetary building blocks before being captured by their current orbits by Jupiter powerful gravity.
"This is an opportunity to explore the new type of world-", said by Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University. NASA has reported that Psyche is set to be launched in October 2023 and will arrive at the asteroid in 2023.
Last year NASA has announced its mission of Lucy and Psyche via its discovery program. NASA official said the dangerous asteroid -hunting Near-Earth Object Camera will get an additional year's worth of funding for continued development.
However, the discovery program was first launched in 1992, supports low-cost planetary missions. At present NASA has funded 12 other Discovery mission including the dawn mission to the huge asteroids Vesta and Ceres.
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