About physics and cosmonautics

Psyche  is a planned orbiter mission that will explore the origin of  planetary cores  by studying the metallic asteroid  16 Psyche . Lindy Elkins-Tanton  of  Arizona State University  is the  Principal Investigator  who proposed this mission for NASA's  Discovery Program . NASA's  Jet Propulsion Laboratory  (JPL) will manage the project. 16 Psyche is the heaviest known  M-type asteroid , and is thought to be the exposed  iron core  of a  protoplanet . This  asteroid may be the remnant of a violent collision with another object that stripped off the outer  crust . Radar observations of the asteroid from Earth indicate an iron–nickel composition. On January 4, 2017, the  Psyche  mission was chosen along with the  Lucy mission  as NASA's next Discovery-class missions. Psyche https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyche_(spacecraft) https://psyche.asu.edu https://www.nasa.gov/psyche

Lucy: The First Mission to Jupiter’s Trojans During the course of its mission, Lucy will fly by six Jupiter Trojans. This time-lapsed animation shows the movements of the inner planets (Mercury, brown; Venus, white; Earth, blue; Mars, red), Jupiter (orange), and the two Trojan swarms (green) during the course of the Lucy mission. Credits: Astronomical Institute of CAS/Petr Scheirich (used with permission) Lucy's orbital path This diagram illustrates Lucy's orbital path. The spacecraft’s path (green) is shown in a frame of reference where Jupiter remains stationary, giving the trajectory its pretzel-like shape. After launch in October 2021, Lucy has two close Earth flybys before encountering its Trojan targets. In the L4 cloud Lucy will fly by (3548) Eurybates (white), (15094) Polymele (pink), (11351) Leucus (red), and (21900) Orus (red) from 2027-2028. After diving past Earth again Lucy will visit the L5 cloud and encounter the (617) Patroclus-Menoetius b