NASA scientists are on the ‘home stretch’ to blast off to a $10,000 quadrillion asteroid this year, they announced Tuesday (July 18).
Engineers and technicians at Cape Canaveral are preparing the Psyche spacecraft for liftoff, which is slated for October 5.
The mission aims to study a space rock that could be worth more than the entire global economy.
The craft will journey to the unique metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter some 499,555,545km (310,409,424 miles) away from Earth.
The rock, named 16 Psyche, potentially has a core of iron, nickel and gold worth $10,000 quadrillion.
Currently, the entire global economy is estimated to be roughly $110 trillion.
The space agency said: “NASA’s psyche mission enters home stretch before launch. With less than 100 days to go before its launch, teams of engineers and technicians are working almost around the clock to ensure the orbiter is ready to journey 2.5 billion miles (4 billion kilometers) to a metal-rich asteroid that may tell us more about planetary cores and how planets form.”
The mission team recently completed a comprehensive test campaign of the flight software and installed it on the spacecraft, clearing the hurdle that kept Psyche from making its original 2022 launch date.
“The team and I are now counting down the days to launch,” said Henry Stone, Psyche’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“Our focus has shifted to safely completing the final mechanical closeout of the spacecraft and preparing the team for operations. The team is conducting numerous training activities to ensure that we are prepared and ready. It’s a very busy time, but everyone is very excited and looking forward to the launch.”
Psyche is set to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy (the first interplanetary launch for that rocket) from Space Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, with additional opportunities scheduled through to 25th October.
After escaping Earth’s gravity, the Psyche spacecraft will use solar electric propulsion to accomplish its six-year journey to asteroid Psyche.
Measuring about 173 miles (279 kilometers) at its widest point, NASA says the asteroid Psyche presents a unique opportunity to explore a metal-rich body that may be part of a core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early planet.
Once the spacecraft reaches Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, it will spend at least 26 months orbiting the asteroid, gathering images and other data that will tell scientists more about its history and what it is made of.
Luis Dominguez, the systems and electrical lead for assembly, test, and launch operations, is usually based at JPL but has been working full-time at the Cape since early June.
“We are moving forward,” he said, “and we’re confident that when we’re on the pad, we’ll be ready to hit the button. For all of us, we’ll be excited to launch this bird.”
Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission, while a division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations.
Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis.
JPL also is providing a technology demonstration instrument called Deep Space Optical Communications that will fly on Psyche to test high-data-rate laser communications that could be used by future NASA missions.
Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Produced in association with SWNS Talker
Edited by Saba Fatima and Asad Ali
