A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the Psyche spacecraft onboard is launched from Launch Complex 39A, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Space probe Psyche at the asteroid Psyche, artist's impression
This artist's-concept illustration depicts the spacecraft of NASA's Psyche mission near the mission's target, the metal asteroid Psyche. The artwork was created in May 2017 to show the five-panel solar arrays planned for the spacecraft. The spacecraft's structure will include power and propulsion systems to travel to, and orbit, the asteroid. These systems will combine solar power with electric propulsion to carry the scientific instruments used to study the asteroid through space. The mission plans launch in October 2023 and arrival at Psyche, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, in 2029. This selected asteroid is made almost entirely of nickel-iron metal. It offers evidence about violent collisions that created Earth and other terrestrial planets.
Image: 2/4, Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter Rubin
NASA's Psyche spacecraft will gather science at the asteroid Psyche at four orbit altitudes, as depicted in this graphic. The orbits are named alphabetically from highest (A) to lowest (D), but they don't proceed in alphabetical order. Rather, they proceed based on the changing amount of sunlight illuminating the asteroid's surface during observation and the kind of science that can be done. Because sunlight will illuminate less and less of the asteroid's surface when the first part of Orbit B begins, this orbit is split into two parts, B1 and B2, so that the spacecraft can complete its mapping of the asteroid. The expected order of orbits during Psyche's prime mission is A, B1, D, C, B2.
On 13 October 2023, at 16:19 (CEST), the Psyche spacecraft was launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Psyche is now on its long journey to the asteroid of the same name, Psyche, and will enter orbit around the asteroid in August 2029. Lindy Elkins-Tanton from Arizona State University (ASU) is the scientific director of the mission, while NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is managing the mission. Three instruments are on board the spacecraft: the Psyche Multispectral Imager (PMI) from ASU, a Psyche Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) and a magnetometer from TU Denmark. The Institute of Planetary Research is involved in the scientific planning and analysis of the image data. The focus will be on calculating the shape of Psyche and mapping the asteroid.
Psyche was the 16th asteroid to be discovered and differs from all other asteroids studied so far in that it consists largely of metal. It is possibly the leftover core of a planet that was partially destroyed in the course of its evolution. After its arrival, Psyche will fly around the asteroid at four different orbital altitudes. First, a global characterisation will be done. Then it will go a little lower to photograph the illuminated part with the camera, and then go even lower so that the particle detector and magnetometer can examine Psyche from close up. At the very end, we go a little higher again to photograph the parts that were in the dark at the beginning. These different orbits will take a total of about 26 months.
