NASA put an asteroid mission on hold Friday, blaming the late delivery of its own navigation software.

Axar.az reports the Psyche mission to a strange metal asteroid of the same name was supposed to launch this September or October. But the agency's Jet Propulsion Lab was several months late delivering its software for navigation, guidance and control a crucial part of any spacecraft. Engineers "just ran out of time" to test it, officials said Friday.

Now the space agency is going to step back, and an independent review will look at what went wrong, when the spacecraft could launch again and even if it should go ahead, NASA planetary sciences chief Lori Glaze said.

NASA has already spent $717 million on Psyche, and its projected total cost, including the rocket to launch it, is $985 million. The small car-sized spacecraft was originally supposed to arrive at its asteroid in 2026 after a journey of more than 1 billion miles (about 1.6 billion kilometers).