# Psyche

*Spacecraft*

On its way to (16) Psyche, an asteroid unusually rich in metal. One reading of it is the exposed core of a small world broken apart, which would be as near as anyone has come to the inside of a planet - but that is the hypothesis the mission is going to test, not a thing already known. It flies on solar-electric thrusters, and arrives in 2029.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Agency | NASA |
| Launched | 2023-10-13 - still working |
| From the Sun | 236,260,801 km (+539,560 km/d) |
| From the Earth | 297,398,393 km (-454,495 km/d) |
| A signal takes | 17 min |
| Travelling at | 26.4 km/s |

Distances and speed are computed from JPL Horizons trajectories and are true of 2026-09-05, changing at the rate given beside each. The interpolation itself is good to a few kilometres; what ages these figures is the date, not the arithmetic.

## Path

A cruise under an ion engine that thrusts almost continuously rather than in bursts, with a Mars flyby in 2026, to enter orbit round the asteroid Psyche in 2029.

## Along the way

- 2026-05-15 — Mars flyby, tilting the orbit into the asteroid's plane

## Elsewhere

- On the live map: https://www.orbitalmap.space/?world=solar-system&focus=psyche
- The mission's own page: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/
- This object as a page: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/psyche/
- Every object: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/
- What this site is and what it reads: https://www.orbitalmap.space/llms.txt