This artist’s concept shows NASA’s Psyche spacecraft heading toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft launched in October 2023 and will arrive at its destination in 2029. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
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This artist’s concept shows NASA’s Psyche spacecraft heading toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft launched in October 2023 and will arrive at its destination in 2029. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and now there’s no holding back. The navigators fire their futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which emit a blue glow, almost continuously as the orbiter moves further into deep space.
The spacecraft lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on October 13, 2023. After leaving our atmosphere, Psyche made the most of its rocket momentum and flew beyond the orbit of Mars.
For next year, the spacecraft will be in what mission planners call “full cruise,” when its electric thrusters take over and push the orbiter toward the asteroid belt. The jets work by ejecting charged xenon atoms or ions, emitting a bright blue glow that trails behind the spacecraft.
They are part of the incredibly efficient Psyche solar electric propulsion system, which is powered by sunlight. The pull created by ionized xenon is subtle, but it does the job. Even at full speed, the pressure exerted by the jets is about what you would feel when holding three-quarters in your hand.
This photo shows a working electric drive identical to those used to power NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The blue glow comes from charged xenon atoms or ions. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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This photo shows a working electric drive identical to those used to power NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The blue glow comes from charged xenon atoms or ions. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The orbiter is now more than 190 million miles (300 million kilometers) away and traveling at 23 miles per second (37 kilometers per second) relative to Earth. That’s about 84,000 mph (135,000 km/h). Over time, with no atmospheric drag to slow it down, Psyche will accelerate to speeds of up to 124,000 mph (200,000 km/h).
The spacecraft will arrive at the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in 2029 and conduct observations from orbit for about two years. The data it collects will help scientists better understand the formation of rocky planets with metal cores, including Earth. Scientists have evidence that the asteroid, which is about 280 kilometers in diameter at its widest point, may be the partial core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early planet.
Clean health status
The flight team used Psyche’s first 100 days in space to perform a full check of all spacecraft systems. All engineering systems function exactly as expected and the three scientific instruments operate without issue.
The magnetometer works so well that it was able to detect an eruption of charged particles from the Sun, as well as the gamma spectrometer and the neutron spectrometer. And this December, two cameras on the imaging device captured their first images.
This image depicts the path taken by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft as it travels toward the asteroid Psyche. Key milestones of the main mission are indicated, including Mars gravity assist in May 2026. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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This image depicts the path taken by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft as it travels toward the asteroid Psyche. Key milestones of the main mission are indicated, including Mars gravity assist in May 2026. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“So far, we’ve turned on and checked the various pieces of equipment needed to complete the mission, and we can report that they’re working great,” said Henry Stone, Psyche project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. who controls the mission.
“We are now on our way and looking forward to the upcoming close flyby of Mars.”
That’s because the probe’s trajectory will bring it back to the Red Planet in the spring of 2026. The spacecraft shuts down its thrusters when it reaches Mars, using the planet’s gravity to launch itself. From there, the jets return to full cruise mode. Next stop: asteroid Psyche.
Meanwhile, the Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration aboard the spacecraft will continue to test its power. The experiment has already exceeded expectations when in April it transmitted test data from a distance of more than 140 million miles (226 million kilometers) at 267 megabits per second to a downlink station on Earth – a bit rate comparable to the download speed of broadband Internet.