NASA Psyche mission lifts off aboard eighth SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch

Essentially, the mission will shed light on early planetary evolution while also investigating a potential future space mining target flying through deep space.

NASA's six-year journey to a distant metal-rich asteroid

NASA's Psyche mission, the space agency's first mission to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, will take six years to reach its target asteroid.

Once there, it will image 16 Psyche, which is a 173-mile-wide (280 kilometers) asteroid that lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

One of the reasons NASA targeted 16 Psyche is because, much like Earth, it has a metallic core. Once it arrives at the massive space rock in 2029, the Psyche spacecraft will orbit its target for at least 26 months. Mission scientists expect to collect enough data for future generations of scientists to pour over for years.

They hope a host of instruments aboard the Psyche spacecraft — including two high-sensitivity magnetic field sensors — will shed new light on the early Solar System and the planet-formation process.

An X-band radio telecommunications system aboard the Psyche spacecraft will accurately measure its gravity field. This data will then be combined with topography from onboard imagery to provide information on the asteroid's interior structure.

16 Psyche was discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. The number '16' refers to the fact it was only the 16th asteroid ever discovered and its name was taken from the Greek goddess of the soul. A recent analysis suggested the asteroid contains $700 quintillion worth of heavy metals, though some scientists have disputed this estimation.

In an interview with CBS News, Psyche principal investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton said, "we've visited, either in person or robotically, worlds made of rock and worlds made of ice and worlds made of gas, but this will be our first time visiting a world that has a metal surface."

"There aren't that many completely unexplored types of worlds in our solar system for us to go see. So that is what is so exciting about this," she continued.

NASA's first Falcon Heavy mission

Psyche is SpaceX's first-ever Falcon Heavy mission for NASA. The mission was intended to launch on Thursday, October 12, though NASA and SpaceX decided to delay the launch by a day due to adverse weather conditions.

Roughly seven minutes after today's launch, Falcon Heavy's two side boosters flew back down to Earth. A ground-shaking supersonic boom could be heard just before they performed one of SpaceX's iconic double booster landings.

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters have landed pic.twitter.com/2yn0lpEkHt

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2023

The two side boosters have now participated in four of SpaceX's eight Falcon Heavy launches to date, according to the company's mission description. The same boosters are expected to be used on the Falcon Heavy launch of NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft next year. The central booster made its first and only flight as it fell down into the Atlantic Ocean after launch.

Until the launch of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) last year for the Artemis I Moon mission, Falcon Heavy was the world's most powerful operational rocket. That's thanks to the fact it uses three strapped-together Falcon 9 boosters, totaling 27 Merlin engines, to give it a massive 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

Psyche spacecraft separation

Just over one hour and two minutes after Falcon Heavy soared into the sky, NASA confirmed the Psyche spacecraft had separated from the Falcon Heavy second stage.

Separation confirmed! ✅ The @SpaceX rocket has demonstrated its ability to withstand the extreme conditions of launch.

Our next big milestone will be to acquire #MissionToPsyche's signal and confirm the spacecraft is in good health, which could take up to 2 hours. pic.twitter.com/oJc0QCzU1Z

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) October 13, 2023

Now, it sets off on its 2.2-billion-mile journey to the metal-rich 16 Psyche. In three years' time, it will fly by Mars before soaring toward a new type of celestial body we've never seen up close before.

This was a breaking news story and it was updated as new information emerged. You can watch the live webcast, as it happened, in the video below.