(NewsNation) — NASA is preparing to launch a mission to the first metal asteroid to be studied and taking significant steps in other missions in what the agency calls “Asteroid Autumn.”

The return of OSIRIS-REx will kick things off as a capsule from the craft will return to Earth on Sep. 24, 2023, with samples from the asteroid Bennu. It will be the first time NASA has collected a sample from the surface of an asteroid in space.

Bennu is a 4.5 billion-year-old remnant from the early solar system. Scientists will spend two years analyzing the samples in hopes of learning more about how asteroids helped lead to the development of our solar system and how they may have helped deliver the water and organic material that makes life possible to Earth.

On Oct. 5, 2023, NASA will launch the Psyche mission, sending a craft to the Psyche asteroid located in an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Psyche has been termed the quadrillion-dollar asteroid because scientists believe it’s made primarily of valuable metals like iron.

However, the agency said there are no plans to mine the asteroid now or in the future. That’s in part because of the distance; the unmanned craft won’t even reach Psyche until 2029, when it will begin collecting data that scientists hope will shed more light on how the metal cores of planets like Earth were formed.

“Asteroid Autumn” will conclude with the Lucy mission. On Nov. 1, 2023, the Lucy spacecraft will encounter the Dinkinesh asteroid. Lucy is making a tour of Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, gathering information from ten different asteroids.

The Trojan asteroids are viewed as fossils of the early solar system, and NASA scientists hope information from Dinkinesh and others can help them gain more insight into the evolution of our solar system.