NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is set to launch on October 12 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, riding atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The Psyche mission is part of NASA’s Discovery Program and is led by Arizona State University, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory managing the mission. The spacecraft will be equipped with instruments to study Psyche’s composition, geology, magnetic field, and gravity. Here is all you need to know:
★Psyche is the name of both an asteroid and a NASA mission. The asteroid Psyche is a unique metal-rich object that orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. It is thought to be the exposed core of an early planet that never fully formed. The Psyche mission aims to explore this asteroid and learn more about its origin, structure, composition, and magnetic field.
★The Psyche mission is scheduled to launch on October 12, 2023, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will use a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful operational rocket in the world, to carry the spacecraft into a high-Earth orbit. From there, the spacecraft will gradually escape Earth’s gravity and head toward the asteroid belt.
★The Psyche spacecraft will take about six years to reach the asteroid Psyche. It will fly by Mars in 2025 for a gravity assist, which will boost its speed and change its trajectory. The spacecraft is expected to arrive at the asteroid in 2029 and orbit it for 26 months.
★The Psyche mission has four main scientific goals and objectives. It aims to understand iron cores, which are building blocks of planet formation, explore the interior of differentiated bodies like Earth, examine a world made of metal instead of rock and ice, and determine whether Psyche is a core or unmelted material.
★The Psyche spacecraft carries three science instruments and a gravity science investigation. These instruments include a multispectral imager to provide high-resolution images of the asteroid’s surface, a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer to measure elemental abundances, a magnetometer to measure the asteroid’s magnetic field, and a gravity science investigation to determine its mass and shape.
In summary, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is scheduled for launch on October 12, 2023, to explore the asteroid Psyche and study its composition, geology, magnetic field, and gravity. The mission aims to understand planet formation, explore the interior of differentiated bodies, examine a metal world, and determine the nature of Psyche.
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