Nasa launches probe to explore metal-rich asteroid Psyche

Nasa yesterday launched a spacecraft from Florida on its way to Psyche, the largest of the several metal-rich asteroids known in our solar system and a body thought to be the remnant core of an ancient protoplanet.

The Psyche probe, folded inside the cargo bay of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, blasted off from Nasa's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on a planned journey 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion km) through space. The spacecraft, roughly the size of a small van, is due to reach the asteroid in August 2029.

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The launch, shown live on Nasa TV, marks the latest in a series of recent Nasa missions seeking clues about the formation of our planet about 4.5 billion years ago by sending robotic spacecraft to explore asteroids - primordial relics from the dawn of the solar system.

This asteroid measures roughly 173 miles (279 km) across at its widest point and resides on the outer fringes of the main asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter.

The spacecraft was due to be released from the rocket's cargo bay about five minutes after the launch, then take about two hours to unfurl its twin solar panels and point its communications antennae toward Earth.

Psyche's mission control team plans to spend the next three to four months conducting checks of the spacecraft's systems before sending it on its journey into deep space, propelled by solar-electric ion thrusters being used for the first time on an interplanetary mission.

After reaching the asteroid, the spacecraft would then orbit it for 26 months, scanning Psyche with instruments built to measure its gravity, magnetic proprieties and composition.

According to the leading hypothesis, the asteroid is the once-molten, long-frozen inner hulk of a baby planet torn apart by collisions with other celestial bodies in the early solar system. It orbits the sun about three times farther than Earth, even at its closest to our planet.