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

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2017 12:31:27 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201701042031.v04KVRbm006728_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

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
Received on Wed 04 Jan 2017 03:31:27 PM PST