NASA's new asteroid probe, Psyche, is on track for launching Oct. 12 after a weeklong delay for additional tests.
Just two weeks before launch, in what amounts to a lucky break, engineers discovered a potentially-crippling problem with thrusters in NASA's Psyche asteroid probe. Equally fortuitous, the fix was relatively straightforward and launch of the $1.2 billion mission only slipped a week.
An artist's impression of the Psyche probe, its solar arrays extended, in orbit around its quarry of the same name, one of only a handful of metallic asteroids yet discovered. It may be core-like material from a planetary building block that was ripped apart in the distant past when two larger bodies collidedLaunch from the Kennedy Space Center atop a powerful SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is now targeted for 10:16 a.m. EDT on Oct. 12.
Studying Psyche is expected to shed light on how the solar system's rocky planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — formed and evolved in the distant past.The high-profile mission suffered a major delay last year when software development and testing fell behind schedule, in part because of earlier COVID-related policies and work slowdowns.
"Thank God, we've got this great team and that we found . And so I have ... total gratitude that they found this before we launched. And it was just fortuitous. It's a good story." "Right after separation from the rocket, one of the things we need to do after we extend the solar arrays is turn to face Earth," Elkins-Tanton said."And that turning is accomplished by firing the cold gas thrusters, of which we have 12.
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