This story was originally published by NASA and is unaltered.

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This story was originally published by NASA and is unaltered.
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Launching to a Metal-Rich Asteroid [1]

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Date: 2023-10

NASA / Aubrey Gemignani

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This image captures the beginning of the spacecraft’s journey to a metal-rich asteroid of the same name.

The body of the Psyche spacecraft is about the size of a small van, and it’s powered by solar electric propulsion. It has a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager to study asteroid Psyche’s composition. The spacecraft will start sending images to Earth as soon as it spots the asteroid.

See more photos from the launch.

Image Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

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[1] Url: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/launching-to-a-metal-rich-asteroid/

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