Asteroid robotic missions - new trend in space exploration

2 missions are chosen by NASA for Discovery program - both are to explore asteroids. There were 5 candidates, two of them  for Venus and three for asteroids. 

The winners are:

1. Lucy - mission to Trojan Jupiter asteroids. These space boulders were captured by Jupiter's gravitation and are now in two Lagrange points of Jupiter - Sun System

Scientists believe that most of these Trojans are from Kuiper Belt - region behind Pluto orbit. So, this is perfect opportunity to explore Solar System's edge without traveling there.

Lucy mission will be launched in 2021, in 2025 it'll fly by 1981EQ5 asteroid in the main Asteroid Belt, then in 2027-2028 will visit four asteroids in Lagrange Point L4 and in 2032 will explore double asteroid system Patrokl in Lagrange L5. Total 6 asteroids will be explored by one spacecraft.

2. Psyche - robotic mission to its namesake - asteroid Psyche in the main belt. Psyshe is, probably, the most interesting object in Asteroid Belt at all - it's ellipsoid 240 x 185 x 145 km, and consists mainly of metal (iron and nickel) - its mass is over 1% of all Asteroid Belt mass.

Psyche mission starts in 2023 and after two gravitational manoeuvres - one by Earth and other by Mars, will orbit Psyche in 2030.

These missions may become the start of space travels infrastructure building - it is very importand is to find resources and raw matherials for repair and fuel stations in the Solar System.  It is definitely new trend - instead of diving in big planets' gravity wells. Now we have mission Dawn in the orbit around dwarf planet Ceres:

Then there are two ongoing sample return asteroid missions:  OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa-2.

Samples and scientifical results from Lucy and Psyche will bring era of space mining nearer