NASA’s asteroid mission gets launch date
It will be the first time researchers are studying a world made of metal, rather than rock and ice, according to NASA.
The NASA mission to send a spacecraft to an asteroid unlike any previously studied is set to launch in October after a yearlong delay, but the wait won’t be the only change to the mission.
The plan is for a spacecraft to orbit the asteroid Psyche and collect information on it. Psyche is a metal-rich asteroid in orbit around the sun, positioned between Mars and Jupiter, according to a post from NASA. It offers a unique opportunity for study because it is presumed to be made of the nickel-iron core of an early planet, according to NASA. Earth is inferred to have a metallic core, but it is too far below the planet’s surface to reach.
By examining Psyche, it will be the first time researchers are studying a world made of metal, rather than rock and ice, according to NASA.
The launch period for the Psyche mission is set to open Oct. 5 and close Oct. 25. The spacecraft destined for Psyche is held in NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and is scheduled to launch from there.
With the newest launch date, there will be an added flyby of Mars on the route to Psyche, NASA posted.
The delayed launch also will mean the spacecraft is set to arrive at the asteroid during a different phase of Psyche’s orbit around the sun than originally planned.
With an October launch, after six years of travel, the spacecraft is set to arrive at Psyche in August 2029. Once at Psyche, the spacecraft will orbit it for 26 months to collect data on its formation as well as study the largely metal asteroid, NASA posted.
The spacecraft was expected to orbit the asteroid at different altitudes, and the initial plan was for the spacecraft to begin the orbits at the highest altitude and work its way down, but that may change, given the launch delay. Now, the spacecraft is no longer expected to orbit the asteroid in descending order but to work from a different pattern that bounces between altitudes, in order to align with the lighting needed for study, according to NASA.
The Psyche mission previously was delayed by NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory from its scheduled August 2022 launch. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is in charge of mission management, operations and navigation for the Psyche mission.
An independent review board made recommendations last November addressing issues that contributed to the yearlong delay. COVID-19, staffing, communication and management oversight were all named as problems, according to NASA. Per the recommendations made by the independent review board, experienced team members were added to the mission, the workforce was reorganized and progress monitoring metrics were added to the workflow.
Leading up to the launch, the Psyche mission will go through a testing period to run scenarios of challenges and best-case outlooks.
This month, the spacecraft was set to go through final assembly, test and launch operations, according to NASA. The majority of the spacecraft was completed before June, with just a few tasks left for completion.