16 Psyche the large metallic asteroid. NASA imagery was used for this composite from … [+]
NASA’s much-anticipated mission to the Main Belt Asteroid (16) Psyche has suffered yet another launch delay. The first came in May when NASA pushed back the launch to no earlier than late September. But in a press conference on Friday, NASA announced that the $985 million Psyche mission —- the agency’s first mission designed to study a metal-rich asteroid —- would not launch this year.
The delay is blamed on the late delivery of the spacecraft’s flight software and testing equipment, says NASA. But the space agency reports that it doesn’t think it has enough time to complete needed further testing ahead of its remaining launch window, which ends on Oct. 11.
Instead of immediately rescheduling the launch, more ominously, the agency says it is forming an independent assessment team “to review the path forward for the project.”
“NASA takes the cost and schedule commitments of its projects and programs very seriously,” Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Directorate in Washington, said in a statement. “We are exploring options for the mission and a decision on the path forward will be made in the coming months.”
The spacecraft was to have arrived at the Asteroid Psyche in 2026. There are possible launch windows for a launch in 2023 and 2024, but NASA says that the relative orbital positions of Psyche and Earth means that the spacecraft would respectively not arrive at the asteroid until 2029 and 2030.
Once it does arrive, the Psyche spacecraft is due to spend 21 months in orbit around Asteroid (16) Psyche hopefully providing insights on how planets with a metal core, including Earth, formed.
The spacecraft features state of the art solar arrays designed to work in low-light conditions far from the Sun.
An hour after launch, the spacecraft’s solar arrays will deploy and provide 2kW of power, says NASA. That’s about the energy needed to operate a handheld hair dryer. But that’s enough to operate a magnetometer to measure any magnetic field the asteroid may have; imagers to photograph and map its surface; and spectrometers to reveal the composition of that surface, NASA notes.
The arrays are also due to power the Deep Space Optical Communications Technology Demonstration that will test high-data-rate laser communications, says NASA.
As for how to explain the asteroid’s largely metallic surface?
There are two ideas. The first —- which is currently the most accepted —- is that the Asteroid Psyche was originally an ordinary asteroid that had lost most of its rocky layers due to violent collisions with other small planetary bodies. The second idea is that as its ancient core cooled, the asteroid was prone to eruptions of metallic lava.
As for when this vital new mission might ultimately see launch?
“Our amazing team has overcome almost all of the incredible challenges of building a spacecraft during Covid,” Psyche Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University (ASU), said in a statement. “We have conquered numerous hardware and software challenges, and we’ve been stopped in the end by this one last problem. We just need a little more time and [we’ll] get this one licked too.”
