[meteorite-list] NASA Selects Two Discovery Missions to Explore the Early Solar System

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6713

NASA Selects Two Missions to Explore the Early Solar System
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 4, 2017

NASA has selected two missions that have the potential to open new windows 
on one of the earliest eras in the history of our solar system - a time 
less than 10 million years after the birth of our sun. The missions, known 
as Lucy and Psyche, were chosen from five finalists and will proceed to 
mission formulation, with the goal of launching in 2021 and 2023, respectively.

"Lucy will visit a target-rich environment of Jupiter's mysterious Trojan 
asteroids, while Psyche will study a unique metal asteroid that's never 
been visited before," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for 
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "This is what Discovery 
Program missions are all about - boldly going to places we've never been 
to enable groundbreaking science."

Lucy, a robotic spacecraft, is scheduled to launch in October 2021. It's 
slated to arrive at its first destination, a main belt asteroid, in 2025. 
>From 2027 to 2033, Lucy will explore six Jupiter Trojan asteroids. These 
asteroids are trapped by Jupiter's gravity in two swarms that share the 
planet's orbit, one leading and one trailing Jupiter in its 12-year circuit 
around the sun. The Trojans are thought to be relics of a much earlier 
era in the history of the solar system, and may have formed far beyond 
Jupiter's current orbit.

"This is a unique opportunity," said Harold F. Levison, principal investigator 
of the Lucy mission from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, 
Colorado. "Because the Trojans are remnants of the primordial material 
that formed the outer planets, they hold vital clues to deciphering the 
history of the solar system. Lucy, like the human fossil for which it 
is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins."

Lucy will build on the success of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto 
and the Kuiper Belt, using newer versions of the RALPH and LORRI science 
instruments that helped enable the mission's achievements. Several members 
of the Lucy mission team also are veterans of the New Horizons mission. 
Lucy also will build on the success of the OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid 
Bennu, with the OTES instrument and several members of the OSIRIS-REx 
team.

The Psyche mission will explore one of the most intriguing targets in 
the main asteroid belt - a giant metal asteroid, known as 16 Psyche, about 
three times farther away from the sun than is the Earth. This asteroid 
measures about 130 miles (210 kilometers) in diameter and, unlike most 
other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, is thought to be comprised 
mostly of metallic iron and nickel, similar to Earth's core. Scientists 
wonder whether Psyche could be an exposed core of an early planet that 
could have been as large as Mars, but which lost its rocky outer layers 
due to a number of violent collisions billions of years ago.

The mission will help scientists understand how planets and other bodies 
separated into their layers - including cores, mantles and crusts - early 
in their histories.

"This is an opportunity to explore a new type of world - not one of rock 
or ice, but of metal," said Psyche Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton 
of Arizona State University in Tempe. "16 Psyche is the only known object 
of its kind in the solar system, and this is the only way humans will 
ever visit a core. We learn about inner space by visiting outer space."

Psyche, also a robotic mission, is targeted to launch in October of 2023, 
arriving at the asteroid in 2030, following an Earth gravity assist spacecraft 
maneuver in 2024 and a Mars flyby in 2025.

In addition to selecting the Lucy and Psyche missions for formulation, 
the agency will extend funding for the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) 
project for an additional year. The NEOCam space telescope is designed 
to survey regions of space closest to Earth's orbit, where potentially 
hazardous asteroids may be found.

"JPL is delighted with the news that Psyche will be moving forward and 
for the additional support for the development of NEOCam. These two exciting 
and important missions will provide far greater understanding of the role 
asteroids play in our solar system," said JPL Director Mike Watkins.

"These are true missions of discovery that integrate into NASA's larger 
strategy of investigating how the solar system formed and evolved," said 
NASA's Planetary Science Director Jim Green. "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."

Discovery Program class missions like these are relatively low-cost, their 
development capped at about $450 million. They are managed for NASA's 
Planetary Science Division by the Planetary Missions Program Office at 
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The missions are 
designed and led by a principal investigator, who assembles a team of 
scientists and engineers, to address key science questions about the solar 
system.

The Discovery Program portfolio includes 12 prior selections such as the 
MESSENGER mission to study Mercury, the Dawn mission to explore asteroids 
Vesta and Ceres, and the InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch in May 
2018.

NASA's other missions to asteroids began with the NEAR orbiter of asteroid 
Eros, which arrived in 2000, and continues with Dawn, which orbited Vesta 
and now is in an extended mission phase at Ceres. The OSIRIS-REx mission, 
which launched on Sept. 8, 2016, is speeding toward a 2018 rendezvous 
with the asteroid Bennu, and will deliver a sample back to Earth in 2023. 
Each mission focuses on a different aspect of asteroid science to give 
scientists the broader picture of solar system formation and evolution.

Read more about NASA's Discovery Program and missions at:

https://discovery.nasa.gov/missions.cfml

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Psyche 
mission, as well as NEOCAM, Dawn and InSight for the agency.

News Media Contact
DC Agle
818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2017-001