![NASA's Psyche spacecraft launches atop SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket to begin a six-year journey to asteroid](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/53255487909_db987b77e4_k.jpg)
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft launches atop SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket to start a six-year journey to asteroid “16 Psyche.” Credit: NASA
After an initial boost from SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, NASA’s Psyche mission has begun a six-year journey to metal-rich asteroid “16 Psyche,” a body that would be the exposed core of a protoplanet.
Liftoff occurred at 10:19 a.m. EDT (14:19 UTC) Oct. 13 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was SpaceX’s fourth Falcon Heavy launch of 2023 and the eighth overall for the rocket design. The Psyche spacecraft was deployed from the upper stage of the rocket just over an hour after liftoff to begin a journey of two.2 billion miles (3.6 billion kilometers) to asteroid Psyche, situated within the important asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The present mission trajectory has the Psyche spacecraft flying once across the solar system before intersecting with Mars in May 2026 for a gravity assist that can place it on a trajectory to intersect with 16 Psyche in August 2029.
From there, its primary science mission is predicted to last about 21 months.
![A map of Psyche's trajectory around the solar system. Credit: NASA](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/PsycheTrajectory.jpg)
A map of Psyche’s trajectory across the solar system. Credit: NASA
A metal-rich asteroid
Discovered by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis in 1852, Psyche was the sixth asteroid to be discovered. The asteroid, which is called for the goddess of the soul in Greek mythology, orbits the Sun at a distance that ranges between 309 million miles (497 million kilometers) and 235 million miles (378 million kilometers). For comparison, the space Earth orbits from the sun averages 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).
The “potato-shaped” asteroid measures some 173 miles (280 kilometers) by 144 miles (323 kilometers). In line with NASA, although 16 Psyche could be very dense, its gravitational pull remains to be small. The agency said lifting a automobile would feel like lifting a big dog.
Due to its density, NASA said scientists consider the asteroid may consist of a considerable amount of metal from the remnant core of a “planetesimal” and will be a survivor of multiple violent collisions when the solar system was still forming several billion years ago.
NASA said existing radar observations from Earth suggest that the asteroid consists of a combination of rock and metal, with metal being between 30% to 60% of its volume. Combined with optical observations, there appears to be evidence of two craterlike depressions, which the agency said suggests significant variation within the metal content across its surface.
Nevertheless, the agency said there are still contradictions in the information and until the spacecraft sees the asteroid up close, we won’t don’t know for certain what it actually looks like.
![Artist's depiction of asteroid Psyche. Image Credit: Maxar/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/psychelongshot0718b_1041x805.jpg)
Artist’s depiction of asteroid Psyche. Image Credit: Maxar/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Psyche mission
The Psyche mission was chosen by NASA as a part of NASA’s Discovery Program in 2017 and is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The unique plan was to launch between August and October 2022, which might have allowed for a more favorable trajectory and an arrival in January 2026.
Nevertheless, late delivery of testing equipment and flight software wouldn’t allow for enough time to make the 2022 window. Launching in 2023 meant adding several years to its cruise.
In line with Arizona State University, which is where the mission’s Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton relies, the overall cost for the Psyche mission is about $850 million, which incorporates development, operations and science, but not launch costs.
In 2020, NASA awarded SpaceX a $117 million contract to launch the Psyche spacecraft atop the corporate’s Falcon Heavy rocket.
The important body of the Psyche spacecraft is 16.1 feet (4.9 meters) tall, 7.1 feet (2.2 meters) wide and seven.8 feet (2.4 meters) deep, in accordance with NASA. With its two solar arrays deployed the vehicle would cover an area roughly the scale of a tennis court and produce about 21 kilowatts of power while near Earth and between 2.3 and three.4 kilowatts while orbiting the asteroid.
Overall, the spacecraft has a mass of about 6,056 kilos (2,747 kilograms) and uses solar electric propulsion. The vehicle has 4 Hall-effect thrusters that use charged ions of inert xenon gas to create thrust. NASA said just one can be used at a time to supply as much as 240 millinewtons of thrust, which the agency said is concerning the force you’d feel while holding the burden of 1 AA battery.
![Technicians install Psyche onto the payload adapter in September 2023 in advance of encapsulation inside the Falcon Heavy payload fairing. Credit: NASA](https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/53213229385_ea592a9520_k.jpg)
Technicians install Psyche onto the payload adapter in September 2023 prematurely of encapsulation contained in the Falcon Heavy payload fairing. Credit: NASA
Science on Psyche
Psyche sports three dedicated science instruments for its primary mission. It has a multispectral imager to photograph the surface of the asteroid in visible and near-infrared. There may be a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, which is able to help scientists determine the chemical elements that make up its surface.
Finally, a magnetometer can be used to search for evidence 16 Psyche has or had a magnetic field, which might support the hypothesis that the body is a remnant planetesimal core.
The spacecraft’s X-band radio communications system will even be used to perform gravity science, which NASA says will help scientists higher understand the asteroid’s rotation, mass, gravity field in addition to clues concerning the interior structure of the body.
While not a part of the first mission, Psyche carries a technology demonstrator called Deep Space Optical Communications, or DSOC.
DSOC is predicted to mainly be used through the first a part of the mission, the journey toward the asteroid. The experiment’s objective is to check using a near-infrared laser to send high-bandwidth data from the spacecraft to Earth. It will be the primary time such a technology can have been utilized by NASA at distances well beyond the Moon.
While the time it takes for any signal to achieve Earth from distant locations will all the time be limited to the speed of sunshine, laser communication technology enables higher-bandwidth transmissions, allowing for more information to be sent at the identical time while not requiring more or larger hardware.
NASA said DSOC relay demonstrations are only intended for the primary two years of the spacecraft’s cruise, however the technology may very well be used for future human and robotic spacecraft.