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An artist’s conception of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, managed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory and scheduled to launch in August 2022, is pictured in an illustration provided by NASA and JPL.
Engineers work on the final assembly of the Psyche space probe, destined to visit and study an asteroid of the same name, at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena on March 28, 2021. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
A NASA spacecraft called Psyche scheduled to launch next year before exploring an asteroid of the same name is undergoing final assembly at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the institution announced Monday.
A key component of the probe called the Solar Electric Propulsion Chassis, which is about the size of a van, will make up about 80% of the mass of the spacecraft, has arrived at JPL from builder Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, JPL said in a written statement.
“Over the next year, the spacecraft will finish assembly and undergo rigorous checkout and testing before it’s shipped to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for an August 2022 launch to the main asteroid belt,” according to the statement.
The probe will study asteroid Psyche, a 140-mile-wide, metal-rich body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
After years of planning, Psyche Project Manager Henry Stone of JPL said it was gratifying to see the spacecraft materialize. But there was also a great deal of careful and precise work to be done.
“It’s exciting watching it all come together, and it’s the part of the project life cycle that I love the most,” he said. “But it’s a really intense phase as well. It’s intricate choreography, and if one activity runs into a problem, it can impact the whole process. Staying on schedule at this phase of the mission is absolutely critical.”
NASA gave the mission the final go-ahead last month for the mission to proceed with assembly and launch plans.
The team at JPL will spend the next year “working against the clock to meet deadlines in the run-up to launch,” according to the JPL statement.
Once launched into space, “[Psyche] will fly by Mars for a gravity assist in May 2023 and in early 2026, will go into orbit around the asteroid, where it will spend 21 months gathering science data,” the statement added.
Scientists hope studying the asteroid will help provide a glimpse into the formation of the solar system.
More information on the mission is available online at nasa.gov/psyche.
Related:
JPL-Managed Mission to Explore Asteroid Cleared for Final Preparations Before Launch
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