• NASA Selects Two Discovery Missions to Explore the Early Solar System

    From baalke@1:2320/100 to sci.space.news on Wed Jan 4 20:31:55 2017
    From Newsgroup: sci.space.news


    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@jpl.nasa.gov

    2017-001

    SEEN-BY: 154/30 2320/100 0 1 227/0