— NASA HQ PHOTO (@nasahqphoto) October 10, 2023 The asteroid was first discovered on March 17, 1852, by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, named for the Greek goddess of the soul who in mythology was born human, but married the Greek god of love Eros, aka Cupid. “This is really an adventure to the unknown, and it’s weird. It’s a weird asteroid, which scientists love,” Noble said. The reveal, though, won’t come for a while as Psyche has to make a 2.5-billion-mile trip that includes a slingshot gravity assist around Mars and an arrival date nearly six years away in August 2029 when it will then begin more than two years of orbital observations set to end in November 2031. The flight path for NASA's Psyche probe to reach the asteroid Psyche beyond Mars in the solar system's main asteroid belt. (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) The probe missed a launch opportunity last year that would have cut years off the mission, as it would have taken advantage of closer proximities among Earth, Mars and the asteroid, which orbits the sun between 235 million to 309 million miles away. “We think we have an idea of what its shape is, and I always joke that it’s shaped like a potato because potatoes come in many shapes. So I’m not wrong,” said mission principal investigator, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, also a professor at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. To date, observations have only given scientists a tiny glimpse of its density, orbit and basic characteristics, so there’s plenty to discover. “Even in Hubble, it’s just a few pixels,” she said noting that photos and scientific data from the probe’s instruments will be transmitted and made public at the same time as it’s available to scientists. “We don’t know what it’s going to look like. We’re going to be surprised. We’re going to learn something new about a fundamental building block for rocky planets.” It’s the first trip by NASA to the asteroid belt as a primary destination since the Dawn mission visited Ceres and Vesta last decade, but one of several asteroid-focused missions under NASA’s recent scientific slate. That includes the return sample from the asteroid Bennu as part of the OSIRIS-REx mission that landed back on Earth last month and the DART mission that slammed a probe into a small asteroid last year. Approved in 2017, it’s the 14th selection by NASA as part of its Discovery Program, which has included missions such as Mars Pathfinder, Kepler space telescope, Lunar Prospector and 2021’s Space Coast launch of the Lucy probe, also on its way to study asteroids that orbit the sun in front of and behind Jupiter. NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division Director Lori Glaze said Discovery Program missions allow for more open-ended science. “It’s really open to the creative ideas of the scientists, the principal investigators that propose the missions,” she said. “Larger missions are more strategic and we have defined destinations or defined science objectives, but in Discovery, it’s wide open. The scientists are free to propose whatever great science they think will fit in the cost box.” It’s one of 39 active planetary missions among 146 across all of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. It rose to the top of a list of dozens of pitches because of its revelatory potential, Glaze said. The probe is “going to see an asteroid type that we’ve never seen before, so it is that unique science that was incredibly compelling,” she said. “We really don’t know what we’re going to see, so truly a mission of discovery, which is fantastic.” Originally Published: