This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft en route to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft launched in October 2023 and will reach its destination in 2029. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
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This artist’s impression shows NASA’s Psyche spacecraft en route to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft launched in October 2023 and will reach its destination in 2029. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and now there’s no stopping it. Navigators are almost continuously firing their futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which emit a blue glow, as the orbiter hurtles further into space.
The spacecraft launched on October 13, 2023 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After leaving our atmosphere, Psyche made the most of its rocket boost and left Mars’ orbit.
Next year, the spacecraft will be in what mission planners call “full throttle” mode, when electric thrusters take over and propel the orbiter toward the asteroid belt. The thrusters eject charged atoms, or ions, of xenon that emit a brilliant blue glow that trails behind the spacecraft.
They’re part of Psyche’s incredibly efficient solar-electric propulsion system, powered by sunlight. The thrust generated by the ionized xenon is gentle, but it gets the job done. Even in full cruise mode, the pressure exerted by the thrusters is about the same as the pressure you’d feel if you held three-quarters in your hand.
This photo shows an electric engine identical to the one used to power NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The blue glow comes from the charged atoms, or ions, of the xenon. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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This photo shows an electric engine identical to the one used to power NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The blue glow comes from the charged atoms, or ions, of the xenon. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The orbiter is now more than 300 million kilometers away and moving relative to Earth at a speed of 37 kilometers per second. That’s about 84,000 miles per hour (135,000 km/h). Over time, Psyche will accelerate to speeds of up to 200,000 km/h without air resistance to slow it down.
The spacecraft will reach the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in 2029 and conduct observations from orbit for about two years. The data collected will help scientists better understand the formation of rocky planets with metallic cores, including Earth. Scientists have evidence that the asteroid, which is about 280 kilometers wide at its widest point, could be the partial core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early planet.
Impeccable health certificate
The flight team used Psyche’s first 100 days in space to conduct a comprehensive review of all of the spacecraft’s systems. All technical systems function as expected and the three scientific instruments run without problems.
The magnetometer works so well that, like the gamma ray and neutron spectrometer, it was able to detect a burst of charged particles from the sun. And last December, the imaging instrument’s twin cameras captured their first images.
This graphic shows the path followed by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft on its way to the asteroid Psyche. Key mission milestones are labeled, including Mars gravity assist in May 2026. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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This graphic shows the path NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will follow on its way to the asteroid Psyche. Key milestones of the primary mission are labeled, including Mars gravity assist in May 2026. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“To this point, we have turned on and checked the various pieces of equipment needed to conduct the mission, and we can report that they are working beautifully,” said Henry Stone, Psyche project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which is managing the mission.
“We are now underway and looking forward to an upcoming close flyby of Mars.”
The space probe’s trajectory will take it back to the Red Planet in spring 2026. As it heads toward Mars, the spacecraft will shut down its engines and catapult itself out using the planet’s gravity. From there the engines return to full cruise mode. Next stop: the asteroid Psyche.
In the meantime, the Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration on board the spacecraft will continue to be tested for its viability. The experiment already exceeded all expectations when it transmitted test data from a distance of more than 226 million kilometers to a downlink station on Earth in April at a speed of 267 megabits per second – a bit rate comparable to the download speed of broadband Internet.