SpaceX has won the launch contract for NASA’s 2022 mission to explore the mineral-rich asteroid known as Psyche, the space agency announced, including launch services and other mission-related costs valued at $117 million remarkably low for a mission of this scale.
The Psyche mission will use a Falcon Heavy rocket, which will launch from Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Located between Mars and Jupiter, the Psyche asteroid is made of the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet and represents a fragment of one of the earliest building blocks of our solar system.
Scientists want to visit the unique metal asteroid, because they believe that it could actually be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet that broke apart due to violent collisions. The mission’s findings could shed light on the formation of our solar system and offer a window into the “violent history of collisions and accretion that created terrestrial planets.”
NASA says launching the Psyche spacecraft and according to SpaceNews, it’s the agency’s first mission that will fly on top of a Falcon Heavy as its primary payload. If everything goes according to plan, the Psyche spacecraft will start its journey in July 2022 from Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
