This artist's concept depicts the 140-mile-wide (226-kilometer-wide) asteroid Psyche, which lies in ... [+] the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Psyche is the focal point of NASA's mission of the same name. The Psyche spacecraft is set to launch in October 2023.
NASA's Mission to That $10,000 Quadrillion Asteroid Is Officially Happening This Fall
Psyche is expected to leave the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center between October 5 and 25. The spacecraft will soar into the stratosphere atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket before it gets a gravity assist from Mars in 2026 to help it along the next stage of the journey.
Named after the Greek goddess of the soul, Psyche was discovered by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis in 1852. The giant M-Type asteroid is thought to be the partial core of a small planet that failed to fully form during the earliest days of our solar system.
Watch a 'potentially hazardous' asteroid zoom by Earth next week
A video NASA released on Wednesday shows the debris caused by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission spacecraft slamming into the asteroid Dimorphos. (Courtesy: NASA / ESA / STScI / Jian-Yang Li (PSI) / Joseph DePasquale (STScI))
According to The Virtual Telescope Project , Asteroid 1994 XD will make its closest approach to Earth on Monday, June 12, just before 9 p.m. EDT.
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