Design Complete for NASA’s Psyche – Spacecraft to Explore a Metal-Rich Asteroid - SciTechDaily

This artist’s concept, updated as of June 2020, depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft.

The mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid is pivoting from planning the details to building real pieces of the spacecraft puzzle.

Psyche, the NASA mission to explore a metal-rock asteroid of the same name, recently passed a crucial milestone that brings it closer to its August 2022 launch date.

Now the mission is moving from planning and designing to high-gear manufacturing of the spacecraft hardware that will fly to its target in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Like all NASA missions, early work on Psyche started with drawing up digital blueprints.

This artist’s concept depicts the asteroid Psyche, the target of NASA’s Psyche mission.

That’s when NASA examines the designs for all of the project systems, including the three science instruments and all of the spacecraft engineering subsystems, from telecommunications, propulsion, and power to avionics and the flight computer.

Mission scientists and engineers worked together to plan the investigations that will determine what makes up the asteroid Psyche, one of the most intriguing targets in the main asteroid belt.

A technician prepares to integrate part of the electric propulsion system onto the main body of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft at Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California.

Since we can’t examine Earth’s core up-close, exploring the asteroid Psyche (about 140 miles, or 226 kilometers, wide) could give valuable insight into how our own planet and others formed.

“And it includes trying to understand down to seven or eight levels of detail exactly how everything on the spacecraft has to work together to ensure we can measure our science, gather our data and send all the data back to Earth.

An electric Hall thruster, identical to those that will be used to propel NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, undergoes testing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Assembly and testing of the full spacecraft begins in February 2021, and every instrument — including a laser technology demonstration called Deep Space Optical Communications, led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — has a deadline of April 2021 to be delivered to JPL’s main clean room.

The main body of the spacecraft, called the Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) Chassis, is already being built at Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California.

In February 2021, Maxar will deliver the SEP Chassis to JPL in Southern California and then deliver the solar arrays that provide all of the power for the spacecraft systems a few months later.

Psyche engineers observe COVID-19 social-distancing and masking requirements as they test an electric Hall thruster identical to those that will propel NASA’s Psyche spacecraft on its journey to the asteroid Psyche.

Meanwhile, Psyche work is also buzzing at JPL, which manages the mission.

Engineers who are essential to perform hands-on work are building and testing electronic components while following COVID-19 safety requirements.

Engineers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, make progress on the spectrometer for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, while observing COVID-19 safety procedures.

NASA’s Psyche mission to a distant metal asteroid will carry a revolutionary Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package

Maxar Technologies is providing a high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis