Tag: Psyche
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Falcon Heavy launches NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe
Falcon Heavy climbs away from Kennedy Space Center, carrying NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now. Getting off to a ground-shaking start, NASA’s $1.2 billion Psyche asteroid probe roared into space atop a Falcon Heavy rocket Friday, setting off on a 2.2-billion-mile voyage to a rare, metal-rich asteroid that may hold clues about how the…
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NASA, SpaceX launch Psyche mission to metallic asteroid
NASA and SpaceX teams launched the agency’s Psyche mission to metallic asteroid 16 Psyche from Florida on Friday, Oct. 13. Psyche launched atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Launch occurred at 10:19 AM EDT (14:19 UTC). Psyche is the first mission…
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Weather delays launch of NASA’s billion-dollar Psyche mission to Friday
Update 6:35 p.m. EDT: NASA delays launch to Friday due to weather. The eighth Falcon Heavy to fly was raised to launch configuration overnight on Wednesday as it prepares to send the Psyche spacecraft off to the asteroid of the same name as early as Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. Image: Adam Bernstein Original story: With…
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Simple settings tweak should save Psyche asteroid mission from overheating thrusters
An artist’s conception of the Psyche spacecraft orbiting near the surface of the Psyche asteroid. Image: Maxar/ASU/Peter Rubin. NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, now scheduled for launch on Oct. 12, will dial down the power of its maneuvering system after engineers discovered its thrusters were in danger of overheating during its eight-year expedition to explore a metallic…
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Rocket Report: Iran launches satellite; Artemis II boosters get train ride
Welcome to Edition 6.13 of the Rocket Report! While SpaceX waits for regulatory approval to launch the second full-scale test flight of its Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket, NASA’s contractors took two steps forward this week to prepare for the second launch of the government-owned Space Launch System on the Artemis II mission, which…
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NASA decides not to launch two already-built asteroid probes
Two small spacecraft should have now been cruising through the Solar System, on their way to study unexplored asteroids, but after several years of development and nearly $50 million in expenditures, NASA announced Tuesday the probes will remain locked inside a Lockheed Martin factory in Colorado. That’s because the mission, called Janus, was supposed to…
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Lucy continues to stabilize its solar array before its October flyby
With the first half of 2022 coming to a close, NASA teams are continuing work to resolve the Lucy spacecraft’s solar array issue following its October 2021 launch. Lucy is a first-of-a-kind mission to visit several asteroids in Jupiter’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points. Currently, Lucy is coasting before its first flyby of Earth in…
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Earlier launch of NASA’s Psyche mission touted as cost-saving measure
Artist’s concept of the Psyche spacecraft, which will conduct a direct exploration of an asteroid thought to be a stripped planetary core. Credit: SSL/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech A NASA spacecraft set to explore a metallic asteroid for the first time will launch in 2022, a year earlier than originally planned, and reach its destination in 2026, four…