Final Assembly Of The Spacecraft That Will Explore Asteroid Psyche Is Underway

NASA has a spacecraft set to launch next year known as the Psyche spacecraft that will explore a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA says that a major component of the Psyche spacecraft has been delivered to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The spacecraft is currently in the phase known as assembly, test, and launch.

Over the next year, the spacecraft will finish being assembled and undergo a rigorous checkout operation before being shipped to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for its August 2022 launch. The spacecraft uses a Solar Electric Propulsion chassis built by Maxar Technologies in California that's roughly the size of a van. The spacecraft is more than 80 percent by mass made up of hardware that will ultimately make up the Psyche spacecraft.

It has a large box-shaped structure that features a 6.5-foot-wide high-gain antenna on one end along with a frame designed to hold science instruments. Some components are covered by red protective covers to protect delicate hardware during the construction phase. The principal investigator of the Psyche mission, Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University, says seeing the large spacecraft chassis arrive at JPL was among the most thrilling of the milestones experienced during the decade of the mission, so far.

Asteroid Psyche is a metal-rich asteroid that orbits the sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Psyche is an interesting asteroid that scientists believe is primarily iron and nickel and could be the core of an early planet. Exploration of Psyche could give valuable insight into how Earth and other planets formed. Psyche is a large asteroid about 140 miles wide. The spacecraft of the same name will, over the next 12 months, work to meet deadlines in the run-up to launch in 2022.