NASA shelves the Janus mission to explore double asteroid systems

CTOnews.com, July 14 (Xinhua) after months of consultation, NASA management issued an announcement on July 11, officially shelving the Janus launch mission.

The Janus mission, part of the small innovative Planetary Exploration Mission (SIMPLEx), was originally scheduled to launch two small satellites (SmallSat) into space in 2022 to delve into the 243Ida double asteroid system.

CTOnews.com Note: while announcing the shelving of the Janus mission, NASA said it would store previously designed and developed spacecraft for a long time.

The Janus mission is in a state of uncertainty after NASA postponed the Psyche asteroid mission.

The Psyche mission, originally scheduled for 2022, has been postponed until October 2023, focusing on a metal-rich asteroid, also known as Psyche, located in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, an unknown world of outer space.

Because NASA postponed the Psyche mission, and the subsequent Janus mission needed to use the payload of the Psyche mission, it was unable to achieve the expected goal.