NASAs newest missions will explore the solar systems asteroids

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Source: Washington Post

[font size=1]NASA announced two new missions, Lucy and Psyche, to explore previously unexplored asteroids. (NASA)[/font]

NASAs newest missions will explore the solar systems asteroids

By Sarah Kaplan January 4 at 3:19 PM

NASA will launch two new missions to asteroids in search of clues about the early solar system, the space agency announced Wednesday.

The first mission, scheduled to launch in 2021, will send a probe to study the Trojan asteroids that swarm ahead of and behind Jupiter and are thought to be relics of the earliest days of the solar system. The project has been dubbed “Lucy,” in honor of the 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus who is humanity’s most famous ancient relative.

The second, slated for 2023, will send an orbiter to 16 Psyche, a massive metallic object in the asteroid belt that is thought to be the exposed iron core of a protoplanet.

The missions are part of NASA’s Discovery Program, launched in 1992 to promote what then-NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin called “better, faster, cheaper” solar system exploration. Discovery projects are shorter, more focused and smaller in scale than the average mission, and their costs are capped at around $500 million.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/04/nasas-newest-missions-will-explore-the-solar-systems-asteroids/?utm_term=.785966780be9

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Source: Christian Science Monitor

NASA sets sights on mysterious asteroids in new missions

What will these small space rocks tell us about the origins of our solar system?

Eva Botkin-Kowacki

JANUARY 4, 2017 —From the project that brought you Mars Pathfinder, MESSENGER, Dawn, Kepler, and GRAIL, come Lucy and Psyche.

NASA announced Wednesday that the next two missions of the agency's Discovery Program will send spacecraft to mysterious asteroids, as scientists hunt for clues into the early days of our solar system.

The Lucy mission's destination will be Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, and the Psyche mission will be off to a larger, metal asteroid unlike other space rocks that NASA missions have targeted.

"These are true missions of discovery that integrate into NASA's larger strategy of investigating how the solar system formed and evolved," Jim Green, NASA's planetary science director, said in a press release. "We've explored terrestrial planets, gas giants, and a range of other bodies orbiting the sun. Lucy will observe primitive remnants from farther out in the solar system, while Psyche will directly observe the interior of a planetary body. These additional pieces of the puzzle will help us understand how the sun and its family of planets formed, changed over time, and became places where life could develop and be sustained – and what the future may hold."

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Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Spacebound/2017/0104/NASA-sets-sights-on-mysterious-asteroids-in-new-missions