# Topics > Space > Asteroid mining >  Psyche, asteroid orbiter, NASA, USA

## Airicist

Contibutors:

NASA

Arizona State University

Maxar Technologies

SpaceX

nasa.gov/psyche

psyche.asu.edu

jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche

Psyche on Wikipedia

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## Airicist

Introduction to the NASA Psyche Mission

Sep 19, 2018




> Psyche, an asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, is made almost entirely of nickel-iron metal. As such, it offers a unique look into the violent collisions that created Earth and the terrestrial planets. 
> 
> The Psyche Mission to this asteroid is in NASA's Planetary Science Division’s Discovery Program. The Psyche Mission’s principal investigator, Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University, narrates this video. 
> 
> The ASU-led Mission to Psyche is targeted to launch in August 2022, arriving in 2026. After arrival, the mission plan calls for 21 months orbiting the asteroid, mapping it and studying its properties. 
> 
> The mission is led by Arizona State University. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. The spacecraft’s solar-electric propulsion chassis will be built by SSL.

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## Airicist

Psyche: mission to a metal asteroid

Dec 6, 2019




> Do you ever wonder what the heart of a baby planet is like? NASA does, too! Psyche is an orbiter mission now in development to visit the asteroid named Psyche, one of our solar system’s most unique objects. As far as scientists can tell by examining it from the Earth, it is a large, perhaps mostly-metal asteroid big enough to span the distance from Los Angeles to San Diego... and it may be the now-exposed core of a protoplanet. Come learn about the details from Tracy Drain, the mission’s Deputy Project System Engineer.
> 
> Tracy Drain, Systems Engineer working at NASA’s JPL

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