Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA’s Psyche mission launches to explore a metal asteroid

Georgina Torbet
By

NASA has successfully launched its Psyche spacecraft on a mission to visit a metal asteroid. The spacecraft launched in spectacular fashion from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:19 a.m. ET today, Friday October 13.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the Psyche spacecraft onboard is launched from Launch Complex 39A, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the Psyche spacecraft onboard is launched from Launch Complex 39A on Friday, October 13, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

The spacecraft, which has a mass of just over 6,000 pounds at launch, made it through Earth’s atmosphere and separated from the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket’s second stage around an hour after launch, a process that is shown in the video below:

Psyche Mission: Spacecraft Separation

Around 70 minutes after launch, a carrier signal was received from the spacecraft at mission control. That signal confirms that the spacecraft is in space and on its journey. The team will now wait for the telemetry signal, expected in the next few hours, which will confirm that full communications between the spacecraft and the ground are operational. The spacecraft is also carrying a new communications experiment called DSOC that will be tested on the journey.

Recommended Videos

The spacecraft will now deploy its solar arrays as it travels on its 2.2 billion-mile journey to the asteroid, which is also named Psyche and is located in the main asteroid belt of our solar system between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will take a spiral path away from the Earth, getting gradually further and further away and receiving a gravity assist when it passes by Mars in 2026. It is expected to reach the asteroid in 2029, when it will go into orbit around it and stay there for two years to study it.

Related

The aim of the mission is for Psyche to investigate the metal asteroid by taking photos, mapping out its surface, and determining its composition. The high levels of metal in the asteroid suggest that it could be the core of a rocky planet, called a planetesimal, which could be similar to Earth’s development as a rocky planet with its own metallic core.

“I am excited to see the treasure trove of science Psyche will unlock as NASA’s first mission to a metal world,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, in a statement. “By studying asteroid Psyche, we hope to better understand our universe and our place in it, especially regarding the mysterious and impossible to reach metal core of our own home planet, Earth.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will soon make its first flyby of an asteroid
An artist's concept of the Lucy Mission.

NASA's Lucy spacecraft, which launched in 2021, is on its way to the orbit of Jupiter to study the Trojan asteroids there. It won't arrive there until 2027, but the spacecraft will have the opportunity to do some extra science before then, as it will soon be making a flyby of another asteroid called Dinkinesh. At less than half a mile wide, this small asteroid sits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it will be Lucy's first asteroid flyby.

Artist’s illustration of the Lucy concept. Southwest Research Institute

Read more
NASA mission collected at least 70 grams of material from asteroid Bennu
Two NASA personnel carry a container holding the sample gathered from the Bennu asteroid.

NASA recently brought its first sample back from an asteroid, with the OSIRIS-REx mission dropping off a sample from asteroid Bennu in the Utah desert. The goal of the mission was to collect at least 60 grams of material, and NASA has now revealed that a total of 70.3 grams has been removed from the sampler so far.

The researchers didn't know beforehand how much material they had collected, as they hadn't been able to perform the required maneuvers with the spacecraft to make a mass estimate while the sample was in transit. They had chosen not to perform the acceleration maneuvers that would let them measure the mass due to an issue that occurred during sample collection, when a rock had wedged open the door of the sample canister and allowed some of the sample to escape. To prevent any more sample loss, the canister was quickly stowed inside the spacecraft.

Read more
NASA photo shows off engines that will power next crewed lunar mission
Four RS-25 engines attached to the core stage of NASA's SLS moon rocket.

NASA has shared an awesome shot (above) showing the four engines that will power the first crewed mission to the moon in five decades.

The four RS-25 engines were recently attached to the core booster of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will propel the four astronauts toward the moon in the Artemis II mission, currently scheduled for November next year.

Read more