Athena (spacecraft) (original) (raw)

Athena is a proposed space mission that would perform a single flyby of asteroid 2 Pallas, the third largest asteroid in the Solar System. If Athena is funded, it would share the launch vehicle with the Psyche and Janus spacecraft and fly its own trajectory for a Mars gravity assist to slingshot into the asteroid belt. It would take about two years to reach Pallas. The mission's principal investigator is Joseph O'Rourke, at Arizona State University.