After being revealed to the world ahead of its flight this summer, NASA’s asteroid-orbiting Psyche spacecraft has moved a step closer to lift-off. Engineers are putting the last touches on the probe, which will launch into orbit in August from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on its way to the same-named metal-rich asteroid.
In May 2023, the spacecraft will fly by Mars for a gravity assist before orbiting asteroid 16 Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in early 2026. Scientists believe the asteroid, which measures 173 miles (280 kilometers) in diameter at its widest point, is crammed with precious metals and worth $10,000 quadrillion (£8,072 quadrillion), albeit an examination released earlier this year refutes this idea.
Because the way Psyche’s gravity pushes on neighboring bodies shows it is significantly less dense than a massive lump of iron should be, researchers from Brown and Purdue universities believe it is more hard rock. Regardless of which theory is correct, NASA hopes that the Psyche mission will be able to corroborate it and uncover the asteroid’s actual origins.
The US space agency believes the space rock is made of metal from a planetesimal’s core, which is one of the building elements of our solar system’s rocky planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. If that’s the case, it might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn more about how planets like our own Earth develop.
Rocked planets are thought to have thick metal cores, according to scientists. Scientists think that rocky planets contain hard metal cores at the heart of the magma under their surfaces, but they’re impossible to detect and study directly since they’re so much beneath the mantle and crust.
Experts believe Psyche may be the exposed core of an early planet, and they believe it may offer up possibilities in this area. Yesterday, members of the media were allowed to observe the spacecraft up close in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
It’s described as “little larger than a Smart Car and approximately as tall as a conventional basketball hoop,” but when you include the solar panels that will power its movement, it’s around the size of a standard basketball hoop.
Psyche’s assembly, test, and launch operations manager at JPL, Brian Bone, stated, “Welcoming reporters into the cleanroom offers the public a taste of the years of hard effort that has gone into this project.”
‘Thanks to the Psyche team’s dedication and ability, we’re nearing the end of the process of getting the spacecraft ready to launch in Florida. Reporters washed off their equipment with isopropyl alcohol to prevent the spaceship from introducing germs from Earth into orbit.
Before entering the High Bay 2 cleanroom in the Lab’s storied Spacecraft Assembly Facility in California, they also put on protective smocks and hair covers.
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