Psych out
NASA’s Psych mission, a futile mission to an unusual asteroid of the same name, is entering the final stages of preparation.
After years of testing and developing scientific instruments that will analyze metallic asteroids, NASA is ready to send individual programs to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). There, engineers will begin to integrate and assemble the entire spacecraft, according to a JPL press release.
“It’s really the final stage, when all the puzzle pieces are coming together and we’re going on a rocket. This is the most intense part of everything that has happened on the ground, “Saidi Chief Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tent told the publication.
Hitting deadlines
If all goes well, the spacecraft will be well prepared in advance for its planned launch in August 2022. NASA expects final testing and assembly to run until spring 2022, when it will eventually be sent to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. .
“There has been a lot of progress in this project, especially in the world around us and in the face of COVID-19 and the obstacles that have been imposed on it,” Saech project manager Henry Stone said in a press release. “We are in a very good position. We are on track and plan to move forward to launch. ”
Poking around
During its 21-month orbit around Saiche, NASA’s spacecraft will take images of the planet as it studies its surface and – if any – its magnetic field.
As asteroids appear to have more metallic content than a typical space rock, scientists suspect that they are actually the core of a planet that has broken down. Depending on what the mission discovers, NASA’s spacecraft could reveal new information about how our planet was formed.
read more: NASA’s Psych mission moves forward, passing key milestones [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
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