Psyche Mission
- 26th Sep 2023
- Author: Elspeth Lewis
Where is the mission going?
The Psyche mission is going to a 226-kilometre-wide asteroid called Psyche. The Psyche asteroid takes about five years to orbit the Sun at a distance of between 378 million kilometres and 497 million kilometres. The Psyche asteroid is in the Asteroid Belt which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and contains over one million asteroids. There are three types of asteroid, C-type which are chondrite asteroids made of clay and silicate rocks, S-type which are made of silicate materials and nickel-iron, and M-types which are composed of nickel-iron.
The asteroid Psyche is a large M-type asteroid. It may be the remains of a core of a planetesimal, an early form of a planet. Scientists believe that rocky planets like Earth have a metal rich core beneath the surface, but they are unreachable. The Psyche mission will endeavour to find out more about whether Psyche really is the partial core of an early planet, and if so it will give us valuable insights into the formation of rocky planets like our own.
Although it is classed as an M-type asteroid, analysis performed using radar observations suggest that the asteroid is composed of between 30% and 60% of metal, with the rest being made from silicate.
Where does the name come from?
Generally, an asteroid gets named by the person who discovered it. The asteroid was discovered in 1852 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis. He named it after the Roman goddess of the soul. The asteroid is sometimes called 16-Psyche because it was the 16th asteroid to be discovered.
In mythology Psyche the goddess was originally a beautiful mortal princess. The goddess Venus was jealous of Psyche’s beauty. Venus' son was named Cupid and was the god of love. Venus asked Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the worst men. However, Cupid instead fell in love with Psyche and removed her to a remote location where he could visit her and told her never to look upon his face. Eventually Psyche discovered Cupid’s identity and Cupid became angry and left her. Aphrodite then set Psyche a set of seemingly impossible tasks. After Psyche had completed the tasks, she married Cupid and became immortal.
Mission overview
The launch window for the Psyche mission opened from 5-25 October 2023. It was delayed from an earlier planned launch on 5 October (in order to update the configuration of thrusters on the spacecraft), and the Psyche mission eventually launched at 15:19 BST on 13 October.
The mission took off from Kennedy Space Center on a Falcon Heavy rocket. Psyche will then use solar panels to power its journey to the metal-rich asteroid. After reaching orbit in the summer of 2029, the mission will spend at least 26 months analysing the asteroid to learn more about the formation of planets.
During the 26 months, the mission will undertake its science operations from four different orbits. These orbits will become successively closer to the asteroid. The mission will be in the most distant orbit for 56 days and will use this time to characterise the asteroid. The second (slightly closer) orbit will look at the topography of the asteroid and will last for 192 days. The still-closer third orbit will investigate the gravity and will last for 100 days. The final and closest orbit will analyse the different elements that Psyche is made from and will last for 100 days. The lead team on the mission is Arizona State University, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be managing the operations and navigation.
Scientific aims, objectives and instruments
The main scientific aims and objectives of the mission are to:
- Explore a metal world for the first time
- Examine what is expected to be a similar structure to the core of the Earth
- Find out what the asteroid is made of, and whether it really is a core of a planetesimal
- Find the relative ages of surfaces on Psyche
- Discover whether there are the same elements present on bodies like Psyche as predicted in Earth’s core
- Discover whether Psyche was formed in similar or different chemical conditions as Earth’s core
- Find out more about Psyche’s topography
The mission consists of five different scientific instruments:
- The psyche multispectral imager will produce high resolution images and use filters to distinguish between the metallic and silicate components that make up the asteroid.
- The Psyche Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer will look at the different elements that make up the asteroid, measure their abundancies, and map their locations.
- The Psyche Magnetometer will detect and measure any remaining magnetic field at the asteroid.
- The mission will use a radio telecommunications system to measure the gravitational field of Psyche, as well as measuring the internal structure.
- The deep space optical communication system is a new laser communication technology that Psyche will be testing to communicate with Earth. It allows more data to be sent to Earth in a given time.
Mission history
The mission to Pyshce was proposed in 2011 and then it was selected by NASA for consideration in 2015. After a rigorous selection process the Psyche mission was selected for flight in 2017. Between 2017 and 2019 the instruments and spacecraft were designed, and construction began in 2019.
The main body of the spacecraft was completed in 2020.
From 2021 onwards any scientific instruments were attached to the main spacecraft body. The spacecraft then had to undergo rigorous testing to ensure it will survive the launch.
Following testing, the spacecraft was transferred to the launch site for final checks. It was packed into its protective fairing two weeks before launch. And now just have to keep our fingers crossed for good weather on launch day!
Along with the recent return of samples from asteroid Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx mission, the launch of the Lucy mission in 2021 to study the swarm of Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter, and the success of the DART mission in September 2022 as a test of asteroid redirection technology, the Psyche mission becomes NASA's latest addition to investigating space rocks in our solar system - bringing us ever closer to understanding rocky planet formation and the risks of potential asteroid impacts in the future!
Full references / credits:
(Banner image) Illustration of the Psyche Mission. Credit: NASA/ JPL- Caltech/ASU/Peter Rubin
(1) An artists impression of the Psyche asteroid. Credit: NASA
(2) The gods celebrating the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art / public domain
(3a) The Psyche mission insignia. Credit: NASA/ Arizona State University
(3b) Falcon Heavy demo launch in February 2018. Credit: SpaceX
(3c) The orbital operations of Psyche. Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech
(4) Psyche spacecraft diagram 1. Hall-effect thrusters 2. Optical telecommunications system - 3. Star trackers - 4. Low-gain antenna - 5. Sun sensor - 6. X-band High-gain antenna - 7. Neutron spectrometer - 8. Gamma-ray spectrometer - 9. Cold gas thrusters - 10. -Y Panel - 11. Magnetometer 12. Top deck - 13. +Y Panel - 14. Multispectral imagers (x2). Credit: NASA JPL
(5) Psyche in a clean room in June 2023. Credit: Nasa Kennedy Space Center/ NASA/ Frank Michaux
