Psyche Probe

News: Psyche Mission spacecraft is set to make a close flyby of Mars to gain a gravity-assisted speed boost that will help guide it toward the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. 

About Psyche Probe

• The Psyche probe is a spacecraft launched in October 2023.
• Launched by: It was launched by NASA. 
• Destination: It is expected to reach its destination on the outer fringes of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
  • It is expected to reach its destination in August of 2029.
• Objective: The objective is to gain a greater understanding of the formation of Earth and other rocky planets that are built around cores of molten metal. 
  • It has been designed to study the metallic asteroid called 16 Psyche.
• The Psyche spacecraft is the first to carry a  Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) transceiver and will be testing high-bandwidth optical communications to Earth during the first two years of the spacecraft’s journey to the main asteroid belt.
• How it works: It travels to the asteroid using solar-electric (low-thrust) propulsion, following a Mars flyby and a gravity assist.
  • Solar-electric (low-thrust) propulsion: It uses Hall effect thrusters, a type of ion engine that generates thrust by ionizing xenon gas and accelerating the charged particles using electricity produced by solar panels. 
  • Mars flyby: The Mars flyby was built into the Psyche flight plan as a way of conserving its supply of xenon gas propellant in the vehicle’s solar-electric ion thruster system.
  • Gravity assist: As the Psyche Mission spacecraft approaches Mars, the planet’s gravity pulls the probe toward it and increases its speed.
    • It is to note that Mars is also moving around the Sun at nearly 24 km per second. 
    • As the spacecraft enters and exits the planet’s gravitational field, it gains some of Mars’ orbital momentum, allowing it to leave with a much higher speed relative to the Sun without using any extra fuel.
    • During this gravity-assist manoeuvre, the spacecraft will pass about 4,500 km above the Martian surface while travelling at nearly 19,848 km per hour.
  • Once in orbit, it will map and study Psyche using a multispectral imager (to capture images of objects in different wavelengths of light), a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, a magnetometer, and a radio instrument (for gravity measurement). 
• It is about the size of a small van, and orbits the asteroid for 26 months, scanning the celestial rock with instruments to measure its gravity, magnetic properties and composition. 
• The spacecraft will then spiral ever closer to the asteroid before ending its mission in 2031.

About 16 Psyche It is a giant metal-rich asteroid, discovered in 1852. Size: It measures about 173 miles (279 km) across at its widest point. Origin: The leading hypothesis for the asteroid’s origin is that Psyche is the once-molten, long-frozen inner hulk of a baby planet torn apart by collisions with other celestial bodies at the dawn of the solar system. Scientists also believe it may contain significant amounts of metal from the core of a planetesimal, one of the building blocks of our solar system.   It is the largest of about nine known asteroids that appear from ground-based radar observations to consist largely of metal, with rocky material mixed in.  Composition: It is believed to consist largely of iron, nickel, gold and other metals, with a collective hypothetical monetary value placed at 10 quadrillion dollars.