JAKARTA - A strange metal-filled asteroid has caught the attention of NASA, with the space agency targeting a spacecraft launch to the asteroid.
Dubbed the asteroid Psyche, it is 140 miles wide and is one of the largest asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. Because it is unique, it makes Psyche a valuable research target and can teach about how it, like Earth, which has a metallic core, formed and evolved.
The spacecraft, also called Psyche, is set to launch in August to an asteroid made entirely of iron and nickel.
Scheduled for August 1, the Psyche spacecraft will ride a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA, and orbit for 21 months.
Launching the official NASA website, Monday, May 9, the spacecraft is currently being prepared for takeoff and its long journey. Not long ago, Psyche had been moved to a special facility at Kennedy where it was being tested and prepared for its big debut.
“Since its arrival on April 29, the Psyche spacecraft has moved to the Dangerous Payload Service Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where technicians remove it from its protective shipping case, rotate it vertically, and have begun the final steps to prepare the spacecraft for flight. launched," said NASA.
"In the coming months, the crew will perform a variety of jobs including reinstalling the solar array, reintegrating radios, testing telecommunications systems, loading propellants, and wrapping the spacecraft in the payload fairing before leaving the facility and moving to the launch pad."
The spacecraft's massive solar array was fully deployed in tests last March, and is needed to provide power to the craft as it travels 1.5 billion miles (2.4 billion kilometers).
Psyche will travel for 3.5 years, get a gravitational boost to cross Mars in 2023, and its arrival on the asteroid Psyche is scheduled for 2026.
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