Why is it in the News?

A NASA experiment on the Psyche spacecraft has beamed back a near-infrared laser that contains test data from almost 16 million kilometers away.

About the Psyche Mission:

• Psyche is a NASA mission to study a metal-rich asteroid ‘Psyche’, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
• The mission launched on October 13, 2023, from Kennedy Space Center and will arrive at Psyche in August 2029.
• The spacecraft will orbit the asteroid for about two years, studying its geology, composition, and magnetic field.
•  Scientists believe that Psyche may be the exposed core of an early planet that never fully formed.
• If so, studying Psyche could provide important insights into the formation of our solar system.
• It is also the first in a series of NASA science missions to be the primary payload launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
• The goals of the Psyche mission are to:
• Understand the composition and structure of a metallic asteroid.
• Determine how Psyche formed and evolved.
• Learn more about the formation of planetary cores.
• The Psyche spacecraft is a solar-powered spacecraft that uses Hall effect thrusters for propulsion.
• The spacecraft also carries a suite of scientific instruments, including:
• A magnetometer to measure Psyche's magnetic field.
• A spectrometer to measure the composition of Psyche's surface.
• A gamma-ray spectrometer to measure the abundance of elements on Psyche's surface.