With a delay of more than a year, NASA plans to send a mission to the asteroid “Psyche” on Friday. It will still be years before the research work can begin.
Update from Friday, October 13, 2023, 4:35 p.m.: The launch was successful, the NASA space probe “Psyche” is on its way to the asteroid of the same name. Both boosters of SpaceX’s “Falcon Heavy” rocket have landed back on Earth after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Only the last step is still missing: one hour and two minutes after launch, the space probe will be separated from the second rocket stage – this should happen at 5:21 p.m. Then “Psyche” is traveling alone in space, on her 3.5 billion kilometer long path to the asteroid “Psyche”.
NASA’s “Psyche” mission is on its way to the asteroid
First report from Friday, October 13, 2023, 1:00 p.m.: Kennedy Space Center – What took a long time should finally be good today (October 13th): The latest space mission from the US space organization Nasa is scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:19 p.m. after several delays. “Psyche” is the first mission to a metal-rich asteroid. A “Falcon Heavy” rocket from the private space company SpaceX is used for this purpose. The probe was originally supposed to launch more than a year ago, but recently bad weather caused minor delays.
The asteroid, which is called “Psyche” just like the mission, is located in the asteroid belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Experts believe that the asteroid is the core of a planetesimal, a celestial body from which planets were formed in the early days of the solar system. But “Psyche” never became a planet. Instead, the celestial body could have collided with other bodies and thus lost its outer shell.
| (16) Psyche |
| asteroid |
| Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter |
| 113 kilometers |
| potato-shaped |
| March 17, 1852 |
| 1827 days |
Asteroid “Psyche” could help explore planetary cores
Now only the core is left. And this is particularly exciting for science, because on Earth it is not possible to penetrate to the metallic core inside the Earth. The asteroid Psyche, on the other hand, could be a unique window into the history of the brutal collisions that took place at the time of the planet’s formation.
The NASA space probe “Psyche” will use several instruments to examine the asteroid of the same name. A magnetometer is supposed to look for evidence of a magnetic field – according to NASA, such a find would be an important indication that “Psyche” was actually the core of a planetesimal. A gamma ray and neutron spectrometer will analyze the chemical elements that make up the asteroid. In addition, a multispectral camera will examine the mineral composition and topography of “Psyche”.
Rocket launch of the “Psyche” mission
If the start of the NASA “Psyche” mission on October 13th fails due to bad weather, there will be an alternative date on October 14th at 10:24 a.m. Overall, the launch window for the space probe is open until October 25th, and a launch is possible every day until then.
How NASA wants to study the asteroid “Psyche”.
The researchers involved want to find out information about the rotation of the asteroid, its mass and its gravitational field using a trick: If they analyze the radio waves with which the space probe communicates, they can determine how the asteroid influences the orbit of the probe and thus its mass , gravity and rotation. This information can in turn provide information about the interior and composition of asteroid “Psyche”.
But some time passes before the space probe even reaches the asteroid – after all, it first has to travel 3.5 billion kilometers in space. “Psyche” is only expected to reach the asteroid of the same name in 2029 and initially enter an orbit around the celestial body at a height of around 700 kilometers. The plan is for the probe to sink deeper and deeper as the mission progresses.
Even if the asteroid “Psyche” does not turn out to be a planetesimal core, the object is extremely exciting for research – after all, a similar object has never been observed before. And it is still possible that “Psyche” is a celestial body from the early days of our solar system.
The last NASA missions to asteroids were completely different than “Psyche”: NASA took rock samples from the asteroid “Bennu” in 2020, which are now to be analyzed in a laboratory in Frankfurt, among other places. The Dart mission to a pair of asteroids ended with NASA pushing the smaller of the two asteroids out of its orbit as a test of planetary defense. (tab)