NASA Gets Ready for a Thursday Launch to Asteroid Psyche

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Image (Credit): The Psyche spacecraft sits aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket earlier today at Launch Complex 39A. (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

After a number of delays, the Psyche mission appears ready to go as the spacecraft sits at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch is scheduled for tomorrow at 10:16 a.m. EDT.

The spacecraft will not reach the metal-rich asteroid Psyche until 2029. It will then orbit the asteroid for about two years collecting data to learn more about an object that astronomers believe may contain clues about the formation of the rocky planets closest to the Sun.

The scientific goals of the mission are to:

  • Understand a previously unexplored building block of planet formation: iron cores.
  • Look inside terrestrial planets, including Earth, by directly examining the interior of a differentiated body, which otherwise could not be seen.
  • Explore a new type of world. For the first time, examine a world made not of rock and ice, but metal.

NASA has a good track record this years with asteroid missions, so let’s hope the positive track record continues with tomorrow’s launch.

Update: Bad weather had delayed the launch until Friday, October 13th.

Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of asteroid Pysche. (NASA)

Space Quote: New Horizons for New Horizons

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rending of the New Horizons spacecraft approaching Pluto. (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI))

“The New Horizons mission has a unique position in our solar system to answer important questions about our heliosphere and provide extraordinary opportunities for multidisciplinary science for NASA and the scientific community…The agency decided that it was best to extend operations for New Horizons until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper Belt, which is expected in 2028 through 2029.”

–Statement by Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, regarding the plans for the New Horizons spacecraft. The NASA statement notes that starting in fiscal year 2025, the New Horizons spacecraft will focus on gathering unique heliophysics data, which does not preclude additional flybys of later identified items in the Kuiper Belt.

Space Missions: Good News for an Asteroid Sample, But Bad News for a Lunar Rover

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Image (Credit): NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample capsule safely situated in the Utah desert earlier today. (Keegan Barber/NASA)

First, let discuss the good news. The capsule carrying the sample material from the asteroid Bennu successfully landed in the Utah desert earlier today, as planned. NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission was a success. The space agency has plenty to celebrate.

And now for the bad news. India’s Chandrayaan-3 moon lander as well as its lunar rover were supposed to wake up around September 22 with the return of sunlight to the Moon’s South Pole. Unfortunately, neither craft showed any signs of coming back online. That said, the India space agency still has plenty to celebrate given its ability to successfully explore the South Pole before night set in.

Asteroid Sample Coming to Earth This Weekend

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Image (Credit): Asteroid Bennu as seen by the OSIRIS-REx as it begins its return to Earth back in May 2021. (NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona; Writer Daniel Stolte, University of Arizona)

This weekend will should see the safe landing of a asteroid sample from far away. On Sunday, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will return to Earth with sample material from asteroid Bennu, which it encountered two years ago.

Launched on Sept. 8, 2016, the spacecraft spent about two years getting to Bennu and then more than two years studying the asteroid and collecting a 250-gram sample that should be in the hands of NASA scientists shortly. The graphic below shows the return path of the sample as it heads for the Utah desert. You can also watch this NASA video for more information on the overall mission and keep abreast of mission highlights via this mission blog. NASA also has a recent podcast discussing the spacecraft’s adventures and trip back to Earth.

And what about OSIRIS-REx after it makes this deposit? It will become OSIRIS-APEX (APEX for “Apophis Explorer”) and go back into the inner solar system before encountering asteroid Apophis in 2029.

We talk about rocket reuse, but this is a terrific example of spacecraft reuse.

The timing could not be better as NASA awaits 2024 budget decisions from Congress and further discussions about another sample return, this one from Mars.

Credit: NASA

Pic of the Week: Astronaut Frank Rubio Still at Work on the ISS

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Image (Credit): NASA astronauts Frank Rubio (left) and Josh Cassada (back to camera) working outside the ISS last November. (NASA TV)

This week’s image shows astronaut Frank Rubio hard at work last year outside the International Space Station (ISS). He has now exceeded the U.S. space duration record, which was 355 days. All of this was unplanned, come as the result of a faulty Russian capsule that kept him on the station longer than his scheduled six month tour.

Mr. Rubio is set to return to Earth on September 27. At that point, he will have spent 371 days in space.

This CBS News segment discusses some of the risks related to a longer stay on the station.