Psyche

Psyche is a NASA robotic space probe launched on October 13, 2023, on a mission to study 16 Psyche, a large metallic asteroid in the main asteroid belt that scientists believe may be the exposed metallic core of an early planetesimal. The spacecraft is expected to arrive at the asteroid later in the decade after a journey that includes a gravity assist flyby of Mars, and it will use imaging instruments, a magnetometer and a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer to study the asteroid composition and structure. Because Psyche the spacecraft and 16 Psyche the asteroid it studies share the same name, its entity here is kept distinct from the asteroid, which is separately recorded as a celestial object on this atlas.