 "NASA Psyche Mission is set to launch in Oct 2023 with new flight plan")
After a year-long delay from a planned launch window in August 2022, NASA's Psyche Mission is tentatively scheduled to launch in October 2023. An ASU faculty team, announced in 2017, is in charge of the project, and aims to investigate the metal-rich 16 Psyche asteroid.
The mission will now follow a new flight path around Mars under the direction of Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the principal investigator and professor at ASU. The planet's gravitational help is expected to drive the spacecraft to the target asteroid.
The previously considered four-year plan called for an initial arrival in August 2026, but this trajectory has moved the spacecraft's arrival to August 2029, a nearly six-year period of flight. The mission will, at that point, enter its 26-month-long science phase gathering and noticing observing from the asteroid.
NASA Psyche Mission 2023: Detailed Overview
After a delay in the software testbed, a review determined that the mission would not meet its launch window, leading to a delay in June 2022.
The ASU team working on the mission includes Elkins-Tanton, and professors Jim Bell and David Williams from the School of Earth and Space Exploration. The mission's spacecraft's multispectral imager is solely their responsibility.
The study of the asteroid's composition, which sheds light on its origin and formation, is an essential component of the Psyche Mission. Several hypotheses are being looked into, such as whether the metal-rich surface is the result of ferrovolcanism or whether the asteroid is the exposed core of an exoplanet.
NASA Psyche Mission 2023: Study
The gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, the ASU-built and designed multispectral imager will collaborate to investigate the surface's chemical composition. The multispectral imager has a filter for the near-infrared; optimized to locate specific silicate and sulfide minerals on the surface of Psyche.
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As part of the initial launch, the imager received two cameras, FM-1 and FM-2, to use on the spacecraft. A third imager, FM-3, was constructed last summer using newly discovered time from the delay. At the Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, the third imager is undergoing extensive calibration testing.
NASA Psyche Mission 2023: Result
NASA has confirmed that the program will continue in effect even after the mission launches. Student interns from ASU are currently being accepted into the program's 2023–2024 cohort. NASA has confirmed that the program will continue in effect even after the mission launches. Student interns from ASU are currently being accepted into the program's 2023–2024 cohort.
The mission will go through crucial testing this summer. This includes "day in the life" tests, in which engineers will use testbeds to simulate the commands they will use when Psyche is in flight for five to seven days. At the moment, the spacecraft is stored at Astrotech Space Operations in Florida, close to NASA's Kennedy Space Center. In June, the final assembly will begin, during which the imagers and solar arrays will be reinstalled on the spacecraft.
After the spacecraft has been fully assembled, NASA's JPL will conduct a final set of tests before fueling it and securing it to the launch vehicle. It is scheduled to take off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center's launch complex 39A.
