NASA prepares its mission to Psyche, the corpse of an ancient planet
by Brice Louvet, scientific writer June 15, 2019
In orbit around the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, the asteroid Psyche will soon be visited. That of NASA. The meeting is scheduled for 2026.
Psyche, of its real name, is one of the most massive objects in the asteroid belt, winding the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. With its 200 kilometers in diameter, it is characterized by its composition: iron and nickel, exclusively. If it is, incidentally, a real gold mine, the object nevertheless interests NASA more for its history. Psyche indeed presents two particularities. The first: it would be the corpse of an ancient planet, similar to Mars. And on the other hand, NASA had so far never had the opportunity to study an object that is not composed of stone or ice.
Arrival expected in 2026
If the study of Psyche appears well in the papers of the American agency for a few years, no precise timetable had so far been confirmed. It is now done. After an in-depth review, it has just approved the final design and manufacturing phase. If everything goes as planned, the mission is expected to leave Earth in August 2022 to arrive in 2026 (January 31), helped by the gravitational force of Mars. "We will then be able to reveal the secrets of the formation of Psyche, this giant and mysterious metallic asteroid," said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, planetologist at Arizona State University.
According to the American agency, this mission will make it possible more generally to “better understand how the Sun and its family of planets were formed, evolved over time, and became places where life could develop and be maintained. It is also a proxy exploration, we can read, of the interior of terrestrial planets and satellites today ”.
To do this, the probe will have to be placed in orbit around the object for several weeks. The payload includes three scientific instruments. A magnetometer on the one hand, designed to detect and measure the remaining magnetic field of the asteroid. A multispectral imager on the other hand, which will provide high resolution images using filters to distinguish the metallic constituents and the silicates of the object. And finally a spectrometer which will aim to map the elementary composition of Psyche.
https://sciencepost.fr/la-nasa-prepare- ... e-planete/
The Wikipedia page on the mission project https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psych%C ... e_spatiale)
The probe will be powered by an ionic engine and will therefore carry 900 kg of Xenon.
The wikipedia page on the Psyche asteroid https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/(16) _Psych% C3% A9
NASA's mission page https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche/
