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The spacecraft is about the size of a car, with solar-powered sails that measure 25 meters by 7.3 meters. The namesake spacecraft would embark on a journey that will have it sailing through space for nearly 3.5 years, and once it locks into an orbit around the asteroid, it will spend another couple of years studying it.
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Psyche is a metal-rich asteroid that is roughly 173 miles across at its widest point and is said to harbor an unusually high metal content, leading scientists to believe that it can help unlock the mysteries of a solar system's formation in the early stages. Of the estimated $985 million budget for the Psyche mission, $717 million have already been spent, and the team is now doing cost calculations to check whether the remaining tasks can be handled without over-budgeting.
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But there wasn't enough time left to perform the full system check and meet the 2022 launch deadline. The issue, which pushed the original mission timeline from August to beyond September, was subsequently fixed. Originally slated to take off in 2022, the team behind the project will now take additional time to validate the flight software for safety. The initial goal was to reach its target in 2026, but owing to orbital position constraints, even a launch in 2023 or 2024 means the spacecraft won't reach the asteroid until 2029 or 2030.ĭuring the test phase at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, its team encountered a compatibility issue in the test version of the software simulator. The agency says it can't finish testing processes needed to carry out the mission before its launch deadline on Oct. NASA has put the Psyche asteroid exploration mission on indefinite hold, citing a delay in the delivery of critical flight software and test gear.