On October 13, 2023, NASA successfully launched a mission to intercept, study, and understand a metal asteroid named Psyche. This particular asteroid is of interest because research suggests that it could be a planet’s core very similar in composition to Earth’s. Launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket earlier this month, the Psyche spacecraft has a six-year journey ahead of it before we can expect any scientific data or results. This mission is led by Arizona State University, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) responsible for mission management.
The launch itself was a success, with JPL finding a suitable launch window despite unfavorable weather conditions surrounding the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. This mission marks the first NASA mission to be launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket. Both side boosters from the Falcon Heavy successfully landed and will be refurbished and reused, each completing their fourth successful launches to date. The core booster of the Falcon Heavy was not recovered, but rather used its full fuel load to ensure Psyche was on the nominal trajectory for its mission. It fell into the Atlantic Ocean with no plans of future recovery.
The Psyche asteroid was first discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, but it was not until the 1960s that studies showed it may be something much more interesting than another asteroid made of rock and ice. Psyche’s color resembled that of iron asteroids that had previously fallen to Earth, indicating that it was of a metallic makeup. Radar pulses bounced off of Psyche provided further evidence that it was not a typical asteroid, as they were reflected with much more intensity than expected. Further evidence of Psyche appearing to be metal-based was found when its trajectory was deflected in certain ways when passing larger worlds that indicated it was much denser than rock or ice. These observations led scientists to hypothesize that Psyche was the remaining core of a planetesimal, which is a term for young planets that reach temperatures high enough for metals to melt and collect at their centers. If Psyche truly is the core of a planet, it could provide significant insight into the inner workings and formation of our home planet.
This mission has many science goals, the most important being to understand what Psyche truly is, whether it is a planet’s core or unmelted planetary material. This mission potentially provides a first-hand look into how the cores of terrestrial planets, like Earth, are formed. It also presents the opportunity to explore a celestial object made of metal as opposed to rock and ice. Some of the science objectives of Psyche are to determine the age of the regions of the Psyche asteroid, analyze the composition of the asteroid, and characterize the conditions under which Psyche was formed. Finally, the spacecraft has a new laser communication technology called Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) that NASA will test. DSOC utilizes photons at near-infrared wavelengths as opposed to radio waves to communicate, allowing the spacecraft to send data at a much higher rate than previously possible.
Stevens Alumnus Jamie Tubungbanua, B.E. Computer Engineering ‘22, is a current Testbed Engineer working on the Psyche mission at JPL’s Mission Control Center in Pasadena, California. In an interview during NASA’s official launch broadcast, Tubungbanua tells about Psyche’s “Testing Twin,” which is hardware located at JPL and mimics every system on the Psyche spacecraft. This testbed allows the JPL team, including Tubungbanua, to confirm that the commands sent to Psyche will have the intended responses on the actual spacecraft. The commands are sent to the testbed and the simulated response is analyzed before sending them to the spacecraft. The Psyche team expects to begin getting data from Psyche in August of 2029, when the spacecraft will orbit the asteroid for at least 26 months.
