The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently announced that its Psyche spacecraft is one step closer to being deployed into Space.
According to the Administration's announcement, the spacecraft's solar arrays have been attached to its body, folded lengthwise, and then stored again, completing its test for Psyche's mission in August.
Brian Bone, head of assembly, test, and launch operations for Psyche's mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said that seeing Psyche fully assembled for the first time is a huge accomplishment that evokes "a lot of pride."
"This is the true fun part," Bone said. "You're feeling it all come together. You feel the energy change and shift."
Details on Psyche's Mission
Psyche's mission involves traveling 1.5 billion miles (2.4 billion kilometers) into the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter to analyze a mysterious, metal-rich asteroid of the same name, per NASA's overview of the Psyche Mission.
The spacecraft will be powered by its twin solar arrays, which are the largest ever installed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, California.
The Psyche asteroid was found to be unique as it appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of a planetesimal, one of the building blocks of rocky planets like Earth. This unique feature of the asteroid provides an opportunity to study how planets were created, as Earth's molten core cannot be reached.
Studying the Psyche asteroid will also provide the information necessary to determine if the asteroid should have been a part of a planet's core or if it is unmelted material. The asteroid's information will also reveal whether small metal bodies incorporate the same light elements as are expected in Earth's core, whether Psyche was formed under conditions more oxidizing or more reducing than Earth's core, and the asteroid's topography.
According to a separate NASA article about the Psyche mission, Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University said that there are several basic questions about the Psyche asteroid that are unanswered and that "with every detail that gets added from data [researchers] can collect from Earth, it becomes harder to make a sensible story."
Elkins-Tanton also added that they don't know what they'll see once the Psyche spacecraft finds and lands on the Psyche asteroid, but they are going to be surprised when it does.
A Run-Down on Psyche's Route and Equipment
The Psyche spacecraft is expected to launch in August from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As such, NASA scientists expect that Psyche will fly by Mars By 2023, with the spacecraft arriving at the asteroid belt in 2026.
The Psyche spacecraft is expected to orbit the Psyche asteroid comer 2026 or 2027.
The spacecraft is equipped with a Multispectral Imager, a Gamma Ray and Neutron Spectrometer, Magnetometer to help figure out the asteroid's origins.
Multispectral Imager is the most advanced imager of its kind, per the European Space Agency. According to NASA's Psyche Mission page, the instrument provides high-resolution images using filters to differentiate between Psyche's metallic and silicate constituents. It will also acquire the asteroid's geologic, compositional and topographic data.
Psyche's Gamma Ray and Neutron Spectrometer will help the spacecraft and scientists to detect, measure, and map the elemental composition of the Psyche asteroid.
The spacecraft also has a Magnetometer designed to detect and measure the asteroid's remanent magnetic field. It will also have an X-band radio communication system to measure Psyche's gravity field.
When combined with topography derived from the Psyche spacecraft's Multispectral Imager, the resulting information will provide information on the interior structure of the Psyche asteroid.
Lastly, the Psyche spaceship will test a new laser communication technology called Deep Space Optical Communication. This new technology will allow the spacecraft to encode data in photons at near-infrared wavelengths to communicate between a probe in deep space and Earth.
