NASA launches first trip to a metal world with Psyche mission

NASA has launched its first mission to a mysterious world made largely of metal, on a journey to find out whether the asteroid is the exposed core of an early planetary building block from the beginning of the solar system.

The Psyche mission lifted off at 10:19 a.m. ET Friday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Psyche will be the first of many upcoming NASA science missions slated to launch aboard the Falcon Heavy rocket.

The mission will travel about 3.6 billion kilometers over the next six years to reach the space rock, located in the outer part of the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.