NASA gears up to explore the early solar system; announces two new robotic missions!

An artist’s conception of the Lucy spacecraft flying by the Trojan Eurybates (Left). Psyche, the first mission to the metal world 16 Psyche (Right) (Image courtesy: NASA)

New Delhi: After announcing the selection of a mission which will allow astronomers to explore supermassive black holes and cosmic x-rays in extreme detail, American space agency NASA has announced two new missions.

Deep space explorations have been on the top of NASA's priority list for a long time and these two missions have come as a welcome surprise for many space enthusiasts across the globe.

Lucy and Psyche, as the missions are being called, are robotic missions planned for launch in 2021 and 2023 respectively, with an aim to target mysterious, unstudied asteroids.

As per NASA, the missions “have the potential to open new windows on one of the earliest eras in the history of our solar system – a time less than 10 million years after the birth of our sun.”

“Lucy will visit a target-rich environment of Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids, while Psyche will study a unique metal asteroid that’s never been visited before,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is what Discovery Program missions are all about – boldly going to places we’ve never been to enable groundbreaking science.”

Scheduled for a 2021 launch, Lucy will arrive at its first destination, a main belt asteroid, in 2025, as per NASA estimates. The years 2027 to 2033 will have the robotic spacecraft explore six Jupiter Trojan asteroids.

These asteroids are trapped by Jupiter’s gravity in two swarms that share the planet’s orbit, one leading and one trailing Jupiter in its 12-year circuit around the sun. The Trojans are thought to be relics of a much earlier era in the history of the solar system, and may have formed far beyond Jupiter’s current orbit, NASA reported.

Lucy will build on the success of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, using newer versions of the RALPH and LORRI science instruments that helped enable the mission’s achievements.

The Psyche mission, on the other hand, is scheduled for a 2023 launch and will explore one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt – a giant metal asteroid, known as 16 Psyche, about three times farther away from the sun than is the Earth.

According to NASA, this asteroid measures about 130 miles (210 kilometers) in diameter and, unlike most other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, is thought to be comprised mostly of metallic iron and nickel, similar to Earth’s core. Scientists wonder whether Psyche could be an exposed core of an early planet that could have been as large as Mars, but which lost its rocky outer layers due to a number of violent collisions billions of years ago.

The mission will help scientists gain an insight into the evolutionary nuances of the separation of planets and other bodies in their respective layers – including cores, mantles and crusts – early in their histories.

Both the Lucy and Psyche missions were selected from among five finalists.

In addition to selecting the Lucy and Psyche missions for formulation, the agency will extend funding for the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) project for an additional year. The NEOCam space telescope is designed to survey regions of space closest to Earth’s orbit, where potentially hazardous asteroids may be found, NASA said.

(Video courtesy: NASA)