NASA mission for metal rich asteroid 16 Psyche has started its ion engines and is now cruising across Solar System under the power of solar-electric drive.
The commencement spacecraft, which is also called PsycheOn October 13, 2023, it gave it enough initial momentum to make it through more than 190 million miles (300 million kilometers) of space that is beyond orbit Mars.
But now its on-board ion engines have taken over the role of acceleration. They work by converting sunlight into electricity through the spacecraft’s solar arrays, which form its “wings”. The resulting electric current feeds an electromagnetic field that accelerates and expels ions, which are charged particles, of xenon gas. As the ions are accelerated from the four thrusters, creating an eerie blue glow, they add momentum to the spacecraft, pushing it in the opposite direction.
Related: A laser on NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe transmits data from 140 million miles away
The force induced by the ejected ions is small; each nozzle provides a pressure equivalent to three coins that push into your hand as a result of the force gravitation. However, without atmospheric friction inside spaceThis subtle thrust can build up and build up quickly, accelerating the spacecraft to increasingly high speeds. Psyche is currently hurtling through space at 84,000 miles (135,000 kilometers) per hour, and the plan is to take it up to 124,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) per hour.
The spacecraft’s ion engines are currently firing almost constantly, propelling it forward, but as part of Psyche’s journey to its namesake asteroid, it will turn back and hit Mars in May 2026. As Psyche approaches the Red Planet, it shuts down its ion engines. and getting caught in Martian gravity and being slingshotted around the planet.
After this gravity assist, the ion engines will restart and the spacecraft’s next stop will be asteroid 16 Psyche in 2029, orbiting for at least two years. Asteroid 16 Psyche is of interest to scientists because it is a large, 173-mile-wide (280-kilometer-wide) fragment of an old planet’s metallic core left over from our solar system’s planet-forming period, about 4.5 billion years ago. By learning about 16 Psyche, planetary scientists hope to discover more about the interior stone planets as Earthand also how these worlds were formed.
During its journey, the Psyche spacecraft was not idle. It took its toll time using various tools to collect scientific data. For example, his magnetometer just like his gamma radiation and a neutron spectrometer detected the charged particles emitted coronal mass ejections of sun. Meanwhile, the spacecraft is also testing a new optical communication technology in deep space based on the use of lasers, rather than radio, to transmit data over interplanetary distances. A test of the system in April exceeded expectations by returning data at 267 megabits per second from a distance of 226 million kilometers (140 million miles). This transfer speed is comparable to your home broadband download speeds.
“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, who is NASA’s Psyche project manager. Current drive laboratoryin declaration.
Psyche is not the first mission asteroid belt use ion engines. before that NASA‘with Dawn mission visited both Ceres and Vest under the throttle of the solar-electric drive. In Star Wars, the name of the Empire’s TIE fighters stands for Twin Ion Engine, but as Dawn and now Psyche show, such technology is no longer science fiction.