NASA Selects Two Missions to Explore the Early Solar System

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Artist’s conception of the Lucy and Psyche mission spacecraft
(Left) An artist’s conception of the Lucy spacecraft flying by the Trojan Eurybates – one of the six diverse and scientifically important Trojans to be studied. Trojans are fossils of planet formation and so will supply important clues to the earliest history of the solar system. (Right) Psyche, the first mission to the metal world 16 Psyche will map features, structure, composition, and magnetic field, and examine a landscape unlike anything explored before. Psyche will teach us about the hidden cores of the Earth, Mars, Mercury and Venus.
Credits: SwRI and SSL/Peter Rubin
NASA has selected two missions that have the potential to open new windows on one of the earliest eras in the history of our solar system – a time less than 10 million years after the birth of our sun. The missions, known as Lucy and Psyche, were chosen from five finalists and will proceed to mission formulation, with the goal of launching in 2021 and 2023, respectively.

“Lucy will visit a target-rich environment of Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids, while Psyche will study a unique metal asteroid that’s never been visited before,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This is what Discovery Program missions are all about – boldly going to places we’ve never been to enable groundbreaking science.”


Lucy, a robotic spacecraft, is scheduled to launch in October 2021. It’s slated to arrive at its first destination, a main belt asteroid, in 2025. From 2027 to 2033, Lucy will explore six Jupiter Trojan asteroids. These asteroids are trapped by Jupiter’s gravity in two swarms that share the planet’s orbit, one leading and one trailing Jupiter in its 12-year circuit around the sun. The Trojans are thought to be relics of a much earlier era in the history of the solar system, and may have formed far beyond Jupiter’s current orbit.

“This is a unique opportunity,” said Harold F. Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy mission from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Because the Trojans are remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets, they hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system. Lucy, like the human fossil for which it is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins.”

Lucy will build on the success of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, using newer versions of the RALPH and LORRI science instruments that helped enable the mission’s achievements. Several members of the Lucy mission team also are veterans of the New Horizons mission. Lucy also will build on the success of the OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu, with the OTES instrument and several members of the OSIRIS-REx team.

The Psyche mission will explore one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt – a giant metal asteroid, known as 16 Psyche, about three times farther away from the sun than is the Earth. This asteroid measures about 130 miles (210 kilometers) in diameter and, unlike most other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, is thought to be comprised mostly of metallic iron and nickel, similar to Earth’s core. Scientists wonder whether Psyche could be an exposed core of an early planet that could have been as large as Mars, but which lost its rocky outer layers due to a number of violent collisions billions of years ago.

The mission will help scientists understand how planets and other bodies separated into their layers – including cores, mantles and crusts – early in their histories.

“This is an opportunity to explore a new type of world – not one of rock or ice, but of metal,” said Psyche Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University in Tempe. “16 Psyche is the only known object of its kind in the solar system, and this is the only way humans will ever visit a core. We learn about inner space by visiting outer space.”

Psyche, also a robotic mission, is targeted to launch in October of 2023, arriving at the asteroid in 2030, following an Earth gravity assist spacecraft maneuver in 2024 and a Mars flyby in 2025.

In addition to selecting the Lucy and Psyche missions for formulation, the agency will extend funding for the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) project for an additional year. The NEOCam space telescope is designed to survey regions of space closest to Earth’s orbit, where potentially hazardous asteroids may be found.

“These are true missions of discovery that integrate into NASA’s larger strategy of investigating how the solar system formed and evolved,” said NASA’s Planetary Science Director Jim Green. “We’ve explored terrestrial planets, gas giants, and a range of other bodies orbiting the sun. Lucy will observe primitive remnants from farther out in the solar system, while Psyche will directly observe the interior of a planetary body. These additional pieces of the puzzle will help us understand how the sun and its family of planets formed, changed over time, and became places where life could develop and be sustained – and what the future may hold.”

Discovery Program class missions like these are relatively low-cost, their development capped at about $450 million. They are managed for NASA’s Planetary Science Division by the Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The missions are designed and led by a principal investigator, who assembles a team of scientists and engineers, to address key science questions about the solar system.

The Discovery Program portfolio includes 12 prior selections such as the MESSENGER mission to study Mercury, the Dawn mission to explore asteroids Vesta and Ceres, and the InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch in May 2018.

NASA’s other missions to asteroids began with the NEAR orbiter of asteroid Eros, which arrived in 2000, and continues with Dawn, which orbited Vesta and now is in an extended mission phase at Ceres. The OSIRIS-REx mission, which launched on Sept. 8, 2016, is speeding toward a 2018 rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu, and will deliver a sample back to Earth in 2023. Each mission focuses on a different aspect of asteroid science to give scientists the broader picture of solar system formation and evolution.

Read more about NASA’s Discovery Program and missions at:

https://discovery.nasa.gov/missions.cfml

-end-

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

Last Updated: Jan. 4, 2017
Editor: Karen Northon

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-two-missions-to-explore-the-early-solar-system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdCU1QQQro
 
Excellent find Flyaway, I will be following these two NASA missions with interest. B)
 
Let the launcher choice speculation begin, hoping to see one of the new launcher types in with a shout such as Vulcan or Falcon.
 
Flyaway said:
Let the launcher choice speculation begin, hoping to see one of the new launcher types in with a shout such as Vulcan or Falcon.

Whenever I order stuff from Amazon, I don't really care what I get: what I really want to know is what kind of truck brought it to my door.
 
LM to build the Lucy spacecraft.

http://news.lockheedmartin.com/2017-01-05-Lockheed-Martin-to-Build-NASAs-Lucy-Spacecraft-a-Mission-to-Trojan-Asteroids

Along with SSL.

http://www.sslmda.com/html/pressreleases/pr20170106.html
 
Flyaway said:
Let the launcher choice speculation begin, hoping to see one of the new launcher types in with a shout such as Vulcan or Falcon.

Selection will be in 2018 and 2020. Doubtful Vulcan is going be available for the first one.
 
Byeman said:
Flyaway said:
Let the launcher choice speculation begin, hoping to see one of the new launcher types in with a shout such as Vulcan or Falcon.

Selection will be in 2018 and 2020. Doubtful Vulcan is going be available for the first one.

Interesting to see that selection will be in 2018 and 2020, that means that the launcher may well be the Block 2 variant of the Space Launch System. That is if NASA gets full funding when the new president takes office, which may well happen according to reports that I have read recently.
 
FighterJock said:
Interesting to see that selection will be in 2018 and 2020, that means that the launcher may well be the Block 2 variant of the Space Launch System. That is if NASA gets full funding when the new president takes office, which may well happen according to reports that I have read recently.

No, these are small spacecraft. They'll fly on a medium-size rocket, not a heavy.
 
blackstar said:
FighterJock said:
Interesting to see that selection will be in 2018 and 2020, that means that the launcher may well be the Block 2 variant of the Space Launch System. That is if NASA gets full funding when the new president takes office, which may well happen according to reports that I have read recently.

No, these are small spacecraft. They'll fly on a medium-size rocket, not a heavy.

Thanks blackstar. I did not realize that they were small spacecraft. :-[
 
New article on the Discovery picks.

Space Systems/Loral of Palo Alto, California, will manufacture the Psyche spacecraft with a suite of ion thrusters to steer the probe toward its destination. Based on the company’s 1300-series design for commercial communications satellites, Psyche is the first spacecraft SSL will build for a NASA Discovery-class interplanetary mission.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/11/two-asteroid-missions-get-nod-from-nasa/
 
FighterJock said:
blackstar said:
FighterJock said:
Interesting to see that selection will be in 2018 and 2020, that means that the launcher may well be the Block 2 variant of the Space Launch System. That is if NASA gets full funding when the new president takes office, which may well happen according to reports that I have read recently.

No, these are small spacecraft. They'll fly on a medium-size rocket, not a heavy.

Thanks blackstar. I did not realize that they were small spacecraft. :-[

Any robotic spacecraft--not designed for humans--will fit on any current launch vehicle. Most spacecraft designed to leave the Earth system are relatively small and can fit on a medium or smaller vehicle. These two spacecraft were selected as part of NASA's Discovery program line. Discovery class missions used to use the Delta II, which was a small-medium launch vehicle. When the Delta II was retired (I think only one is left for launch), they all had to move up to the next class of launcher, which is the Atlas V. The Atlas V can be augmented with solid motors, but Discovery vehicles usually are so small and lightweight that they can fly with a lot of extra margin and no solids.

A relatively small robotic spacecraft going to another planet could benefit from a really large launch vehicle because that could send it on a faster trajectory. However, that big vehicle costs more money, so it's usually not worth it.
 
blackstar said:
Flyaway said:
Let the launcher choice speculation begin, hoping to see one of the new launcher types in with a shout such as Vulcan or Falcon.

Whenever I order stuff from Amazon, I don't really care what I get: what I really want to know is what kind of truck brought it to my door.
I'd be more excited to see an Amazon drone than a courier truck at my door, but that's just me! ;D
 
ZacYates said:
blackstar said:
Flyaway said:
Let the launcher choice speculation begin, hoping to see one of the new launcher types in with a shout such as Vulcan or Falcon.

Whenever I order stuff from Amazon, I don't really care what I get: what I really want to know is what kind of truck brought it to my door.
I'd be more excited to see an Amazon drone than a courier truck at my door, but that's just me! ;D

Oh, that would certainly be cool. But I have nightmares of opening the door only to have a drone's rotors slice my head open...
 
NASA Glenn Tests Thruster Bound for Metal World

As NASA looks to explore deeper into our solar system, one of the key areas of interest is studying worlds that can help researchers better understand our solar system and the universe around us. One of the next destinations in this knowledge-gathering campaign is a rare world called Psyche, located in the asteroid belt.

Psyche is different from millions of other asteroids because it appears to have an exposed nickel-iron surface. Researchers at Arizona State University, Tempe, in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, believe the asteroid could actually be the leftover core of an early planet. And, since we can't directly explore any planet's core, including our own, Psyche offers a rare look into the violent history of our solar system.

"Psyche is a unique body because it is, by far, the largest metal asteroid out there; it's about the size of Massachusetts," said David Oh, the mission's lead project systems engineer at JPL. "By exploring Psyche, we'll learn about the formation of the planets, how planetary cores are formed and, just as important, we'll be exploring a new type of world. We've looked at worlds made of rock, ice and of gas, but we've never had an opportunity to look at a metal world, so this is brand new exploration in the classic style of NASA."

But getting to Psyche won't be easy. It requires a cutting-edge propulsion system with exceptional performance, which is also safe, reliable and cost-effective. That's why the mission team has turned to NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, which has been advancing solar electric propulsion (SEP) for decades.

SEP thrusters use inert gases, like xenon, which are then energized by the electric power generated from onboard solar arrays to provide gentle, non-stop thrust.

"For deep space missions, the type and amount of fuel required to propel a spacecraft is an important factor for mission planners," said Carol Tolbert, project manager for Psyche thruster testing at NASA Glenn. "A SEP system, like the one used for this mission, operates more efficiently than a conventional chemical propulsion system, which would be impractical for this type of mission."

The reduced fuel mass allows the mission to enter orbit around Psyche and provides additional space for all of the mission's scientific payload. Psyche's payload includes a multispectral imager, magnetometer, and gamma-ray spectrometer. These instruments will help the science team better understand the asteroid's origin, composition and history.

Additional benefits of SEP are flexibility and robustness in the flight plan, which allow the spacecraft to arrive at Psyche much faster and more efficiently than it could using conventional propulsion.

For this mission, the spacecraft, which will be built jointly by JPL and Space Systems Loral (SSL), will use the SPT-140 Hall effect thruster. Because Psyche is three times farther away from the Sun than Earth, flying there required a unique test of the low-power operation of the thruster in the very low pressures that will be encountered in space.

The mission team called upon NASA Glenn, and its space power and propulsion expertise, to put the mission's thruster through its paces at the center's Electric Propulsion Laboratory.

"This mission will be the first to use a Hall effect thruster system beyond lunar orbit, so the tests here at Glenn, which had never been conducted before, were needed to ensure the thruster could perform and operate as expected in the deep space environment," said Tolbert.

The facility at NASA Glenn has been a premier destination for electric propulsion and power system testing for over 40 years and features a number of space environment chambers, which simulate the vacuum and temperatures of space.

"This was very important to the mission because we want to test-like-we-fly and fly-like-we-test," said Oh. "Glenn has a world-class facility that allowed us to go to very low pressures to simulate the environment the spacecraft will operate in and better understand how our thrusters will perform around Psyche.

"At first glance, the results confirm our predictions regarding how the thruster will perform, and it looks like everything is working as expected. But, we will continue to refine our models by doing more analysis."

As the team works toward an anticipated August 2022 launch, they will use the data collected at NASA Glenn to update their thruster modeling and incorporate it into mission trajectories.

The scientific goals of the Psyche mission are to understand the building blocks of planet formation and explore firsthand a wholly new and unexplored type of world. The mission team seeks to determine whether Psyche is the core of an early planet, how old it is, whether it formed in similar ways to Earth's core, and what its surface is like. For more information about NASA's Psyche mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/psyche

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YDj4JwqoU4
 
There is, or was, a critical shortage of fuel available for RTGs. They may not have had a choice.

I am under the impression that the shortage is now over.

That is excellent news for NASA. I was extremely worried for the future outer solar system exploration especially for the proposed Uranus and/or Neptune fly-by/orbiter mission.
 
August 12, 2019


RELEASE 19-066


NASA Mission Selects Final Four Site Candidates for Asteroid Sample Return


Asteroid Bennu

Pictured are the four candidate sample collection sites on asteroid Bennu selected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. Site Nightingale (top left) is located in Bennu’s northern hemisphere. Sites Kingfisher (top right) and Osprey (bottom left) are located in Bennu’s equatorial region. Site Sandpiper (bottom right) is located in Bennu’s southern hemisphere. In December, one of these sites will be chosen for the mission’s touchdown event.

After months grappling with the rugged reality of asteroid Bennu’s surface, the team leading NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission has selected four potential sites for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft to “tag” its cosmic dance partner.

Since its arrival in December 2018, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has mapped the entire asteroid in order to identify the safest and most accessible spots for the spacecraft to collect a sample. These four sites now will be studied in further detail in order to select the final two sites – a primary and backup – in December.

The team originally had planned to choose the final two sites by this point in the mission. Initial analysis of Earth-based observations suggested the asteroid’s surface likely contains large “ponds” of fine-grain material. The spacecraft’s earliest images, however, revealed Bennu has an especially rocky terrain. Since then, the asteroid’s boulder-filled topography has created a challenge for the team to identify safe areas containing sampleable material, which must be fine enough – less than 1 inch (2.5 cm) diameter – for the spacecraft’s sampling mechanism to ingest it.

“We knew that Bennu would surprise us, so we came prepared for whatever we might find,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “As with any mission of exploration, dealing with the unknown requires flexibility, resources and ingenuity. The OSIRIS-REx team has demonstrated these essential traits for overcoming the unexpected throughout the Bennu encounter.”

The original mission schedule intentionally included more than 300 days of extra time during asteroid operations to address such unexpected challenges. In a demonstration of its flexibility and ingenuity in response to Bennu’s surprises, the mission team is adapting its site selection process. Instead of down-selecting to the final two sites this summer, the mission will spend an additional four months studying the four candidate sites in detail, with a particular focus on identifying regions of fine-grain, sampleable material from upcoming, high-resolution observations of each site. The boulder maps that citizen science counters helped create through observations earlier this year were used as one of many pieces of data considered when assessing each site’s safety. The data collected will be key to selecting the final two sites best suited for sample collection.

In order to further adapt to Bennu’s ruggedness, the OSIRIS-REx team has made other adjustments to its sample site identification process. The original mission plan envisioned a sample site with a radius of 82 feet (25 m). Boulder-free sites of that size don’t exist on Bennu, so the team has instead identified sites ranging from 16 to 33 feet (5 to 10 m) in radius. In order for the spacecraft to accurately target a smaller site, the team reassessed the spacecraft’s operational capabilities to maximize its performance. The mission also has tightened its navigation requirements to guide the spacecraft to the asteroid’s surface, and developed a new sampling technique called “Bullseye TAG,” which uses images of the asteroid surface to navigate the spacecraft all the way to the actual surface with high accuracy. The mission’s performance so far has demonstrated the new standards are within its capabilities.

"Although OSIRIS-REx was designed to collect a sample from an asteroid with a beach-like area, the extraordinary in-flight performance to date demonstrates that we will be able to meet the challenge that the rugged surface of Bennu presents," said Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "That extraordinary performance encompasses not only the spacecraft and instruments, but also the team who continues to meet every challenge that Bennu throws at us."

The four candidate sample sites on Bennu are designated Nightingale, Kingfisher, Osprey, and Sandpiper – all birds native to Egypt. The naming theme complements the mission’s two other naming conventions – Egyptian deities (the asteroid and spacecraft) and mythological birds (surface features on Bennu).

Since arriving at near-Earth asteroid Bennu in December 2018, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission has been studying this small world of boulders, rocks, and loose rubble - and looking for a place to touch down. The goal of OSIRIS-REx is to collect a sample of Bennu in mid-2020, and return it to Earth in late 2023.

The four sites are diverse in both geographic location and geological features. While the amount of sampleable material in each site has yet to be determined, all four sites have been evaluated thoroughly to ensure the spacecraft’s safety as it descends to, touches and collects a sample from the asteroid’s surface.

Nightingale is the northern-most site, situated at 56 degrees north latitude on Bennu. There are multiple possible sampling regions in this site, which is set in a small crater encompassed by a larger crater 459 feet (140 m) in diameter. The site contains mostly fine-grain, dark material and has the lowest albedo, or reflection, and surface temperature of the four sites.

Kingfisher is located in a small crater near Bennu’s equator at 11 degrees north latitude. The crater has a diameter of 26 feet (8 m) and is surrounded by boulders, although the site itself is free of large rocks. Among the four sites, Kingfisher has the strongest spectral signature for hydrated minerals.

Osprey is set in a small crater, 66 feet (20 m) in diameter, which is also located in Bennu’s equatorial region at 11 degrees north latitude. There are several possible sampling regions within the site. The diversity of rock types in the surrounding area suggests that the regolith within Osprey may also be diverse. Osprey has the strongest spectral signature of carbon-rich material among the four sites.

Sandpiper is located in Bennu’s southern hemisphere, at 47 degrees south latitude. The site is in a relatively flat area on the wall of a large crater 207 ft (63 m) in diameter. Hydrated minerals are also present, which indicates that Sandpiper may contain unmodified water-rich material.

This fall, OSIRIS-REx will begin detailed analyses of the four candidate sites during the mission’s reconnaissance phase. During the first stage of this phase, the spacecraft will execute high passes over each of the four sites from a distance of 0.8 miles (1.29 km) to confirm they are safe and contain sampleable material. Closeup imaging also will map the features and landmarks required for the spacecraft’s autonomous navigation to the asteroid’s surface. The team will use the data from these passes to select the final primary and backup sample collection sites in December.

The second and third stages of reconnaissance will begin in early 2020 when the spacecraft will perform passes over the final two sites at lower altitudes and take even higher resolution observations of the surface to identify features, such as groupings of rocks that will be used to navigate to the surface for sample collection. OSIRIS-REx sample collection is scheduled for the latter half of 2020, and the spacecraft will return the asteroid samples to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023.

Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator, and the University of Arizona leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the spacecraft and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about OSIRIS-REx, visit:

 
I can't wait to see what Psyche looks like up-close. I'm not sure whether the colors are imaginary or extrapolations from spectroscopy but a huge chunk of metal might just look different from Ceres, a carbonaceous asteroid. Not holding my breath too hard, though - space weathering probably means regolith doesn't look too different. Moondust is full of iron particles and it doesn't look spectacularly weird.
 


July 7, 2020
Building NASA's Psyche: Design Done, Now Full Speed Ahead on Hardware
This artist's concept depicts NASA's Psyche spacecraft.
This artist's concept, updated as of June 2020, depicts NASA's Psyche spacecraft.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

The mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid is pivoting from planning the details to building real pieces of the spacecraft puzzle.

Psyche, the NASA mission to explore a metal-rock asteroid of the same name, recently passed a crucial milestone that brings it closer to its August 2022 launch date. Now the mission is moving from planning and designing to high-gear manufacturing of the spacecraft hardware that will fly to its target in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Like all NASA missions, early work on Psyche started with drawing up digital blueprints. Then came the building of engineering models, which were tested and retested to confirm that the systems would do their job in deep space – by operating the spacecraft, taking science data and communicating it back to Earth.
artist's concept depicts the asteroid Psyche
This artist's concept depicts the asteroid Psyche, the target of NASA's Psyche mission.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

And the team just sailed through a key stage in that process, the critical design review. That's when NASA examines the designs for all of the project systems, including the three science instruments and all of the spacecraft engineering subsystems, from telecommunications, propulsion, and power to avionics and the flight computer.

"It's one of the most intense reviews a mission goes through in its entire life cycle," said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, who as principal investigator for Psyche leads the overall mission. "And we passed with flying colors. The challenges are not over, and we're not at the finish line, but we're running strong."

Studying a Metal-Rock World

Mission scientists and engineers worked together to plan the investigations that will determine what makes up the asteroid Psyche, one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt. Scientists think that, unlike most other asteroids that are rocky or icy bodies, Psyche is largely metallic iron and nickel – similar to Earth's core – and could be the heart of an early planet that lost its outer layers.

Since we can't examine Earth's core up-close, exploring the asteroid Psyche (about 140 miles, or 226 kilometers, wide) could give valuable insight into how our own planet and others formed.

To that end, the Psyche spacecraft will use a magnetometer to measure the asteroid's magnetic field. A multispectral imager will capture images of the surface, as well as data about the composition and topography. Spectrometers will analyze the neutrons and gamma rays coming from the surface to reveal the elements that make up the asteroid itself.

The mission team made prototypes and engineering models of the science instruments and many of the spacecraft's engineering subsystems. These models are manufactured with less expensive materials than those that will fly on the mission; that way they can be thoroughly tested before actual flight hardware is built.

"This is planning on steroids" said Elkins-Tanton, who also is managing director and co-chair of the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University in Tempe. "And it includes trying to understand down to seven or eight levels of detail exactly how everything on the spacecraft has to work together to ensure we can measure our science, gather our data and send all the data back to Earth. The complexity is mind-boggling."
An electric Hall thruster
An electric Hall thruster, identical to those that will be used to propel NASA's Psyche spacecraft, undergoes testing at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The blue glow is produced by the xenon propellant, a neutral gas used in car headlights and plasma TVs.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Building the Spacecraft

Now that Psyche is full-speed ahead on building hardware, there's no time to lose. Assembly and testing of the full spacecraft begins in February 2021, and every instrument – including a laser technology demonstration called Deep Space Optical Communications, led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory – has a deadline of April 2021 to be delivered to JPL's main clean room.

The main body of the spacecraft, called the Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) Chassis, is already being built at Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California. While observing social-distancing requirements for COVID-19 prevention, engineers there are working to attach the propulsion tanks. In February 2021, Maxar will deliver the SEP Chassis to JPL in Southern California and then deliver the solar arrays that provide all of the power for the spacecraft systems a few months later.
Thumbs-up for a successful test
Thumbs-up for a successful test. Psyche engineers observe COVID-19 social-distancing and masking requirements as they test an electric Hall thruster identical to those that will propel NASA's Psyche spacecraft on its journey to the asteroid Psyche.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Meanwhile, Psyche work is also buzzing at JPL, which manages the mission. Engineers who are essential to perform hands-on work are building and testing electronic components while following COVID-19 safety requirements. The rest of the JPL team is working remotely.

JPL provides the avionics subsystem, which includes Psyche's flight computer – the brain of the spacecraft. With equipment spread out on racks in a clean room, engineers test each piece before integrating it with the next. Once everything is connected, they test the full system with the software, operating the electronics exactly as they will be used in flight.

"One of the things we pride ourselves on in these deep-space missions is the reliability of the hardware," said Psyche Project Manager Henry Stone of JPL. "The integrated system is so sophisticated that comprehensive testing is critical. You do robustness tests, stress tests, as much testing as you can – over and above.

"You want to expose and correct every problem and bug now. Because after launch, you cannot go fix the hardware."


"I get goosebumps – absolutely," Stone said. "When we get to that point, you've made it through a huge phase, because you know you've done enough prototyping and testing. You're going to have a spacecraft that should work."

Psyche is set to launch in August 2022, and will fly by Mars for a gravity assist in May 2023 on its way to arrival at the asteroid in early 2026.

More About the Mission

ASU leads the mission. JPL in Southern California is responsible for the mission's overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Technologies is providing a high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis.

For more information about NASA's Psyche mission go to:


 
Osiris-Rex has successfully touched the surface of Asteroid Bennu, NASA will hold a press conference at 10:00 EDT tonight to see if the touch was successful and grabbed a sample of Bennu‘s rocks and/or dust, if it was not successful there will be another attempt in January.
 
Captured on Oct. 20, during the OSIRIS-REx mission’s Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event, this series of 82 images shows the SamCam imager’s field of view as the NASA spacecraft approaches and touches down on asteroid Bennu’s surface. The sampling event brought the spacecraft all the way down to sample site Nightingale, and the team on Earth received confirmation of successful touchdown at 6:08 pm EDT. Preliminary data show the sampling head touched Bennu’s surface for approximately 6 seconds, after which the spacecraft performed a back-away burn.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJBv4reH9IU
 

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