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    25Nov, 2023
    NASA’s Webb reveals new features in heart of Milky Way

    The latest image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the dense center of our galaxy in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features astronomers have yet to explain. The star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.

    The latest image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the dense center of our galaxy in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features astronomers have yet to explain. The star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.

    “There’s never been any infrared data on this region with the level of resolution and sensitivity we get with Webb, so we are seeing lots of features here for the first time,” said the observation team’s principal investigator Samuel Crowe, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

    “Webb reveals an incredible amount of detail, allowing us to study star formation in this sort of environment in a way that wasn’t possible previously.”

    “The galactic center is the most extreme environment in our Milky Way galaxy, where current theories of star formation can be put to their most rigorous test,” added professor Jonathan Tan, one of Crowe’s advisors at the University of Virginia.

    Protostars

    Amid the estimated 500,000 stars in the image is a cluster of protostars — stars that are still forming and gaining mass — producing outflows that glow like a bonfire in the midst of an infrared-dark cloud.

    At the heart of this young cluster is a previously known, massive protostar over 30 times the mass of our Sun.

    The cloud the protostars are emerging from is so dense that the light from stars behind it cannot reach Webb, making it appear less crowded when in fact it is one of the most densely packed areas of the image.

    Smaller infrared-dark clouds dot the image, looking like holes in the starfield.

    That’s where future stars are forming.

    Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument also captured large-scale emission from ionized hydrogen surrounding the lower side of the dark cloud, shown cyan-colored in the image.

    Typically, Crowe says, this is the result of energetic photons being emitted by young massive stars, but the vast extent of the region shown by Webb is something of a surprise that bears further investigation.

    Another feature of the region that Crowe plans to examine further is the needle-like structures in the ionized hydrogen, which appear oriented chaotically in many directions.

    “The galactic center is a crowded, tumultuous place. There are turbulent, magnetized gas clouds that are forming stars, which then impact the surrounding gas with their outflowing winds, jets, and radiation,” said Rubén Fedriani, a co-investigator of the project at the Instituto Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain.

    “Webb has provided us with a ton of data on this extreme environment, and we are just starting to dig into it.”

    Around 25,000 light-years from Earth, the galactic center is close enough to study individual stars with the Webb telescope, allowing astronomers to gather unprecedented information on how stars form, and how this process may depend on the cosmic environment, especially compared to other regions of the galaxy.

    For example, are more massive stars formed in the center of the Milky Way, as opposed to the edges of its spiral arms?

    “The image from Webb is stunning, and the science we will get from it is even better,” Crowe said. “Massive stars are factories that produce heavy elements in their nuclear cores, so understanding them better is like learning the origin story of much of the universe.”

    Resource : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231121175511.htm

    7Nov, 2023
    NASA Finds Record-Breaking Black Hole Using ‘Cosmic Magnifying Glass’

    Astronomers using two NASA space telescopes have found one of the farthest black holes from the solar system using a rare alignment of galaxies to act as a magnifying glass.

    Existing just 470 million years after the Big Bang—the event that’s thought to have created our universe 13.8 billion years ago—it’s the most distant black hole yet seen in X-rays. Neither wavelength of light is visible to humans.

    It was found using both the James Webb Space Telescope, which sees the universe in infrared, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which sees in x-rays.

    Remarkably Distant

    “We needed Webb to find this remarkably distant galaxy and Chandra to find its supermassive black hole,” said Akos Bogdan of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), lead author of a paper published today in the journal Nature Astronomy. “We also took advantage of a cosmic magnifying glass that boosted the amount of light we detected.”

    The black hole—which is at an earlier stage of development that any found before—was found in a galaxy called UHZ1. It’s in a cluster of galaxies called Abell 2744, which exists about 3.5 billion light-years from the solar system. Nicknamed Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744 is a megacluster of three separate clusters of galaxies and a stunning 50,000 objects.

    However, JWST observations revealed UHZ1 to be behind the cluster, a whopping 13.2 billion light-years from the solar system. That makes it just 3% of the universe’s current age.

    Einstein Ring

    JWST was able to make the discovery thanks to gravitational lensing. It describes a scenario when the gravitational field of a foreground object is so intense that it distorts the space around it and bends the light from an object behind it into circular rings, both revealing its existence and magnifying it. It’s also known as an “Einstein Ring” because it was predicted by the famous physicist Albert Einstein.

    Gravitational lensing is the best way to infer the presence of incredibly distant objects and measure their mass. In this case the black hole’s mass is similar to that of its host galaxy—between 10 and 100 million times the mass of our sun. That’s way more mass than expected.

    Sure Signs

    Once JWST had located it, Chandra spent a couple of weeks observing X-ray light coming from the galaxy, a sure sign of a growing supermassive black hole. Acting as a gravitational lens, Abell 2744 magnified the background galaxy by a factor of four.

    The observations could help scientists figure out how black holes at the beginning of the universe appear to have grown so quickly. The paper suggests that this particularly black hole was born big.

    “There are physical limits on how quickly black holes can grow once they’ve formed, but ones that are born more massive have a head start,” said co-author Andy Goulding of Princeton University. “It’s like planting a sapling, which takes less time to grow into a full-size tree than if you started with only a seed.”

    Resource : https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/11/06/nasa-finds-record-breaking-black-hole-using-cosmic-magnifying-glass/?sh=2a9aefdf2324

    13Jul, 2023
    NASA Engineers Help Create A Virtual World of Data

    For almost as long as it’s been a concept, NASA has been on the cutting edge of virtual reality (VR) technology. However, the space has seen a renaissance since the bulky headsets of the 1990s. Several high-profile companies now use VR for immersive video games and virtual chat rooms, but to some, this technology has a use beyond entertainment.

    NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has been trying to improve data visualization for decades. When pictures come back from an alien world, scientists usually survey the environment with a panoramic photo, but this method has limitations. When observing a flat image, judging distances can be difficult.

    “Looking at pictures on a screen is a much different experience to walking through a canyon,” said Scott Davidoff, manager of the Human Centered Design Group at JPL.

    Davidoff began experimenting with VR using image data from the Curiosity rover on Mars. There had been attempts to solve the visual distance issue, like using 3D imagery viewable with red and blue filtered glasses, but nothing made scientists feel like they were really there. Davidoff and his colleagues decided to wrap the panorama around the scientist in a virtual environment. Geologists using VR in this way reported feeling like they were in the real Martian environment. They could ascertain the distance and size of features much more quickly and accurately than they could with a flat display, which sparked another idea. Davidoff thought that if viewing imagery in VR helped, it could be a game changer for more complex “multi-dimensional” data.

    “When you look at a network diagram as a system in 3D, it turns out your perception does something different,” Davidoff said. “We made a data world where an analyst could look at any science or engineering problem and see patterns and correlations more clearly than they can in a flat version.”

    At the same time, Ciro Donalek and George Djorgovski at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) were researching how to use immersive environments for scientific data visualization and collaboration.

    The three of them teamed up to create software that uses 3D visualizations to examine relationships between points of data. Much like how viewing a three-dimensional Martian panorama allows for better interpretation, seeing data in virtual space makes spotting correlations easier.

    Obtaining an exclusive license from Caltech, which manages JPL, Donalek, Djorgovski, and new CEO Michael Amori founded Virtualitics Inc. of Pasadena, California, in 2016, with Davidoff in an advisory role. To further build out the software, they’ve incorporated features such as artificial intelligence to point out patterns and relationships in the visualized data.

    “We call it intelligent exploration. You’re using AI and 3D visualizations to quickly identify drivers and relationships in your data, and drive understanding in ways 2D graphs aren’t capable of,” Donalek, now CTO of Virtualitics, said. “You can start getting insights from your data right away because it’s literally drag and drop.”

    The software works on both desktop and VR and is compatible with several popular headsets. While the platform is designed for use anywhere there’s a significant amount of data, it is currently most often used in banking, retail, and medical research. It can visualize anything from a spreadsheet to a large “data lake” without having to move the data from where it resides. Donalek says the company maintains a relationship with JPL, and many of its 60 employees come from the center or Caltech.

    “One of them is from MIT, but we don’t hold it against him,” Donalek joked.

    Whether analysts are looking at science from the surface of Mars or stock trades on Wall Street, NASA’s visualization efforts have led to a whole new dimension of research.

    NASA has a long history of transferring technology to the private sector. The agency’s Spinoff publication profiles NASA technologies that have transformed into commercial products and services, demonstrating the broader benefits of America’s investment in its space program. Spinoff is a publication of the Technology Transfer program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).

    Resource : https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/spinoff/NASA_Engineers_Help_Create_A_Virtual_World_of_Data

    6Apr, 2023
    NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter breaks world records, again

    NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has been flying on the red planet’s surface for over two years now, and it has covered a distance of over 11 kilometres in that time. While 11 kilometres in two years may not seem like much in Earth terms, Ingenuity is actually breaking world records on the Mars.

    Ingenuity’s 49th flight, which happened on Sunday, April 2, broke two different records–that for the highest altitude and the highest speed–achieved by any self-propelled aircraft outside of Earth. During its 49th flight, the little rotorcraft flew up to a height of 16 metres and reached a top speed of 23.4 kilometres per hour.

    The rotorcraft set its previous flight height record on the red planet on December 3, 2022, when it flew about 14 metres in the air. Its previous flight speed record of 19.8 kilometres per hour was achieved on three different occasions–December 10, June 11, and April 8.

    Its longest flight so far was its record-breaking 25th flight on April 8, 2022, when it covered a distance of a whopping 704 metres in what is still its longest flight and was its fastest flight until flight 49.

    What is Ingenuity?

    Ingenuity is a small solar-powered helicopter that landed on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021, along with the Perseverance Rover. On April 19, the same year, it created history by completing the first powered extraterrestrial flight in human history. During that flight, it hovered and landed and the same spot for a flight that lasted 39.1 seconds, creating history.

    Why are Ingenuity’s records so impressive?

    While these distances may seem small for us here living on Earth, do remember that Mars is more than 225 million kilometres away right now. The distance between the two planets means that it takes between 5 to 20 minutes for a signal to travel from one to another.

    Adding to this signal delay, Ingenuity also has to survive the harsh conditions on Mars. The low atmospheric density on the planet means that Ingenuity must work much harder than helicopters here on Earth in order to be able to fly. Also, it has had to survive “continent-sized” dust storms in the past and other Martian hazards in the past.

    Resource : https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/nasa-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-8539782/

    14Mar, 2023
    NASA To Measure Forest Health from Above

    In places across the U.S., tree cover is shrinking – forests are burned by wildfires on the West Coast and drowned by rising sea levels along the East. From the ground, it’s hard to assess the scale of the losses and the effects disappearing trees have on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and climate change.

    NASA research scientist Jon Ranson is working to improve new technologies for studying trees from above, so future Earth-observing missions can more accurately assess forest health.

    “Trees do a huge service for the planet, in terms of sequestering carbon dioxide, taking it out of the atmosphere and putting it into wood,” Ranson said, “but trees are very sensitive to our changing climate. We’re trying to see the changes going on in forest ecosystems. If you detect things early enough, you might be able to do something about it.”

    When measured from aircraft and satellites, the wavelengths of light reflected by plants tell scientists about the amount of photosynthesis occurring, and therefore how much atmospheric carbon dioxide trees take up and store. The current standard for studying vegetation is called NDVI, or Normalized Differential Vegetation Index, which is the average of two broad portions of the infrared spectrum. NASA’s NDVI record goes back 40 years, providing a low-resolution but accurate picture of forest health.

    While NDVI is good at assessing vegetation quantity and vigor broadly, Ranson said, breaking down infrared and visible light into many more wavelengths, a technology called hyperspectral imaging, can provide insight on plants’ water content, chlorophyll and even changes in health. 

    “Vegetation has these broad spectral properties,” said Ian Adams, Earth Sciences Division Technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “With hyperspectral imaging, you get lots of different measurements at smaller, closer together frequencies. There is a lot more information we can pull out if we can get better spectral resolution.”

    By dramatically increasing the number of frequencies available for researchers to study, Ranson’s work serves the priorities of the National Academies of Science’s most recent Earth Science decadal survey, which determines the field’s long-term priorities. The survey lists “surface topography and vegetation,” including forests, as a key area of study in need of more advanced technology.

     “Strategically for NASA, and more broadly for the remote sensing community, hyperspectral is one of the areas we see as the future,” Adams said.

    To make use of hyperspectral imaging by future orbital missions, data analysis techniques are first proven closer to the ground.

    Ranson’s team fitted a Skyfish drone (UAV) from partner institution Virginia Tech with a visible and infrared (VIS/IR) hyperspectral camera and lidar equipment. They flew the imaging equipment over forests near Blacksburg, VA, in a region called Mountain Lake. Comparing their UAV observations with actual CO2 levels recorded by sensors on a nearby National Ecological Observatory Network tower, Ranson’s team was able to refine calculations about how much carbon the forest removed from the atmosphere.

    These comparisons allowed them to further refine techniques for interpreting the hyperspectral data. For instance, Plants stressed by too much sunlight may release pigments to shield their chloroplasts, a condition his sensors can detect. If plants get too much shade, they may grow leaves with larger surface-areas, which can cause the sensor to overestimate plant productivity. Ranson wants to add short-wave infrared sensors to better distinguish reflections from leaves and other parts of plants, eliminating another possible source of error.

    The view from space: Seeing the forest for the trees

    Ranson’s goal is to study forests on a global scale from space.

    “We’re trying to get the complete picture,” Ranson said. “So that when we go to space, we know how to find the answer to the question, ‘Are our forests healthy? And if not, why not?’”

    Scientists and engineers at Goddard have been developing a mission concept called Concurrent Artificially intelligent Spectrometry and Adaptive Lidar System, or CASALS. If selected, CASALS would send a satellite with lidar and hyperspectral cameras into space. A constellation of such satellites could take the frequent measurements necessary to assess changes in forest productivity over time, using models perfected by Ranson’s UAV flights.“Forests take up as much carbon as the ocean does, yet forests cover only 9 percent of Earth’s surface,” said Ranson. “So, if something goes wrong with our forests, it’s a dramatic issue. We’ve got this great, great resource in forests, and we need to care for them so they’ll care for us.”

    Resource : https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-measure-forest-health-from-above

    7Dec, 2022
    NASA’s Mars helicopter has just set a new flight record

    NASA’s plucky Ingenuity helicopter set a new flight altitude record on Mars on Saturday.

    In a mission lasting 52 seconds, the 4-pound, 19-inch-tall machine reached a height of 46 feet over the martian surface while traveling a distance of 49 feet.

    While most of Ingenuity’s 35 flights on the red planet have reached a peak altitude of 33 feet, the weekend excursion by the drone-like device topped the existing record of 39 feet achieved on three separate flights last year.

    Ingenuity reached Mars with NASA’s Perseverance rover in a spectacular arrival captured in high-definition video in February 2021.

    Two months later, following a period of ground-based tests, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to achieve powered, controlled flight on another planet with a 39-second hover 10 feet off the ground. Its longest flight to date covered a distance of 2,325 feet in a mission in April 2022.

    Although the helicopter was sent to Mars to merely test the viability of using such a machine for future planetary missions, Ingenuity performed so well that NASA started using it to assist the ground-based Perseverance rover as it searches for evidence of ancient life on the planet.

    The aircraft helps by using its downward-facing camera to search for areas of interest for Perseverance to explore. The aerial vantage point also allows the team to use the imagery to find the safest and most efficient routes for Perseverance to take as it makes its way across the rocky surface to different exploration sites.

    Ingenuity’s record-breaking flight came 11 days after the flying machine set another record, for the shortest flight in Mars aviation history when it hovered 16 feet off the ground for a mere 18 seconds. The mission was an important one, however, as it gave the team a chance to test two new capabilities, specifically, hazard avoidance for landings and digital elevation maps to aid navigation.

    Resource : https://www.digitaltrends.com/space/nasa-mars-helicopter-new-flight-record/

    21Nov, 2022
    Jet Engine Installed on NASA’s X-59 QueSST Quiet Supersonic Aircraft

    NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology aircraft, or QueSST, is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound without producing a loud, disruptive sonic boom, which is typically heard on the ground below aircraft flying at such speeds. Instead, with the X-59, people on the ground will hear nothing more than a quiet sonic thump – if they hear anything at all. Credit: NASA / Joey Ponthieux

    NASA’s quiet supersonic X-59 aircraft now has the jet engine that will power it in flight.

    Earlier this month, at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, the F414-GE-100 engine was installed. This marks a major milestone as the X-59 approaches the completion of its assembly.

    The F414-GE-100 engine from General Electric Aviation measures 13-foot-long and packs 22,000 pounds of propulsion energy and will power the X-59 as it flies at speeds up to Mach 1.4 and altitudes around 55,000 feet.

    “The engine installation is the culmination of years of design and planning by the NASA, Lockheed Martin, and General Electric Aviation teams,” said Ray Castner, NASA’s propulsion performance lead for the X-59. “I am both impressed with and proud of this combined team that’s spent the past few months developing the key procedures, which allowed for a smooth installation.

    The X-59 team will follow the aircraft’s assembly with a series of ground tests and ultimately, first flight in 2023.

    NASA’s X-59 is the centerpiece of the agency’s Quesst mission. The aircraft is designed to reduce the sound of sonic booms, which occur when an aircraft flies at supersonic speeds, to a quiet sonic “thump.” This will be demonstrated when NASA flies the X-59 over communities around the U.S. starting in 2025, with the goal of providing the data necessary to open the future to commercial supersonic flight over land, greatly reducing flight times.

    Resource : https://scitechdaily.com/jet-engine-installed-on-nasas-x-59-quesst-quiet-supersonic-aircraft/

    9Nov, 2022
    NASA shifts launch date for its mega moon rocket yet again

    NASA’s Artemis I mission just can’t catch a break.

    Following several delays earlier this year due to technical issues on the launchpad, and more disruption caused by Hurricane Ian that prompted NASA to roll its next-generation Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to shelter, the approaching Tropical Storm Nicole is now causing concern among mission planners.

    Nicole is expected to develop into a hurricane before making landfall in Florida on Thursday morning. After assessing the latest weather data for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said on Tuesday that it is no longer targeting Monday, November 14 for the SLS rocket launch that will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a journey to the moon and back. Instead, it is aiming to send the SLS skyward on Wednesday, November 16.

    “NASA is continuing to monitor Tropical Storm Nicole and has decided to retarget a launch for the Artemis I mission for Wednesday, November 16, pending safe conditions for employees to return to work, as well as inspections after the storm has passed,” NASA said in a release on Tuesday.

    “Adjusting the target launch date will allow the workforce to tend to the needs of their families and homes, and provide sufficient logistical time to get back into launch status following the storm.”

    At the current time, Kennedy is in what is known as a HURCON (Hurricane Condition) III status, which involves securing facilities, property, and equipment at the center. It also has in place a ride-out team that will remain in a safe location at Kennedy throughout the storm to keep a close eye on the flight hardware for the Artemis I mission.

    For now, NASA plans to keep the 98-meter-tall SLS rocket on the launchpad, but if the weather conditions worsen significantly, it could take the same action it took with Hurricane Ian and roll the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) about four miles from the launchpad.

    After spending the entirety of October in the VAB — initially for protection from Hurricane Ian, but also to fix a number of technical issues — NASA rolled the SLS back to the launchpad last Friday.

    The space agency says its rocket is designed to withstand 85-mph (74.4-knot) winds at the 60-foot level. Current windspeed forecasts fall within that range.

    Hatches on the Orion spacecraft, which sits atop the rocket, have been secured to prevent water intrusion from any rain. For added protection, engineers have also placed a hard cover on the launch abort system window, and secured the crew access arm on the mobile launcher, among other measures, NASA said.

    Artemis I, when it finally gets underway, will be a test run for the crewed Artemis II mission taking the same route around the moon. If both go well, Artemis III will endeavor to put the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface, a mission that could take place as early as 2025.

    Resource : https://www.digitaltrends.com/space/nasa-shifts-launch-date-again-for-its-mega-moon-rocket/

    5Nov, 2022
    NASA Invites Media to Discuss Space Station Science, Experiments

    NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 9, to discuss the hardware, technology demonstrations, and science experiments headed to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s 26th commercial resupply mission for the agency.

    Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live online at:

    https://www.nasa.gov/live

    SpaceX is targeting Friday, Nov. 18, to launch its Dragon cargo spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    One of the payloads aboard the cargo flight is the Moon Microscope kit for in-flight medical diagnosis that includes a portable handheld microscope and a small self-contained blood sample staining device. This will allow astronauts to collect and stain a blood sample, obtain images with the microscope, and transmit images to the ground, where flight surgeons will use them to diagnose illnesses and prescribe treatments.

    SpaceX’s Dragon also will deliver new science investigations, supplies, and equipment for the international crew, including the next set of International Space Station Roll Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs). It also will carry a study which will grow dwarf tomatoes as part of efforts to create a continuous fresh-food production system in space, and an experiment that tests an on-demand method to create specific quantities of key nutrients.

    Teleconference participants include:

    • Kirt Costello, NASA’s chief scientist for the International Space Station Program Research Office, who will provide an overview of the research and technology launching aboard the Dragon spacecrafts
    • Gioia Massa, NASA’s space crop production scientist and principal investigator for the Veg-05 study
    • Matt Mickle, Boeing’s developmental projects senior manager, who will discuss International Space Station Roll Out Solar Arrays (iROSA)
    • Timothy Macaulay, CIPHER vestibular health study lead, an experiment which will use the newly launching Falcon Goggles tool
    • Mayra Nelman-Gonzalez, immunologist in NASA’s Johnson Space Center’s Immunology and Virology Laboratory and co-investigator for the Moon Microscope technology demonstration
    • John A. Hogan, chief of the bioengineering branch at NASA’s Ames Research Center and principal investigator for the BioNutrients-2 experiment
    • A representative for the Extrusion study sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory

    To participate in the call, media must contact Lora Bleacher at least two hours prior to the start of the call for dial-in details at: lora.v.bleacher@nasa.gov. Media and the public can submit questions on social media using #AskNASA.

    Cargo resupply by U.S. companies significantly increases NASA’s ability to conduct more investigations aboard the orbiting laboratory. Those investigations lead to new technologies, medical treatments, and products that improve life on Earth. Other U.S. government agencies, private industry, and academic and research institutions can also conduct microgravity research through our partnership with the ISS National Laboratory.

    Humans have occupied the space station continuously since November 2000. In that time, 263 people and a variety of international and commercial spacecraft have visited the orbital outpost. It remains the springboard to NASA’s next great leap in exploration, including future missions to the Moon under Artemis and eventually Mars.

    Members of the public can attend the launch virtually and receive mission updates. To participate, members of the public can register to stay up to date on mission information, mission highlights, and interaction opportunities.

    For launch countdown coverage, NASA’s launch blog, and more information about the mission, visit:

    https://www.nasa.gov/spacex

    Resource : https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-media-to-discuss-space-station-science-experiments

    31Oct, 2022
    NASA Continues Psyche Asteroid Mission

    NASA announced Friday the agency decided its Psyche mission will go forward, targeting a launch period opening on Oct. 10, 2023.

    Earlier this year, Psyche missed its planned 2022 launch period as a result of mission development problems, leading to an internal review of whether the mission would be able to overcome these issues to successfully launch in 2023.

    This continuation/termination review was informed by a project-proposed mission replan and a separate independent review, commissioned in June by NASA and the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, that investigated causes for the delay.

    “I appreciate the hard work of the independent review board and the JPL-led team toward mission success,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The lessons learned from Psyche will be implemented across our entire mission portfolio. I am excited about the science insights Psyche will provide during its lifetime and its promise to contribute to our understanding of our own planet’s core.”

    The independent review board is still finalizing its report, which, along with NASA’s response, will be shared publicly once complete.

    The mission team continues to complete testing of the spacecraft’s flight software in preparation for the 2023 launch date. The new flight profile is similar to the one originally planned for August 2022, using a Mars gravity assist in 2026 to send the spacecraft on its way to the asteroid Psyche. With an October 2023 launch date, the Psyche spacecraft will arrive at the asteroid in August 2029.

    “I’m extremely proud of the Psyche team,” said JPL Director Laurie Leshin. “During this review, they have demonstrated significant progress already made toward the future launch date. I am confident in the plan moving forward and excited by the unique and important science this mission will return.”

    NASA selected Psyche in 2017 to investigate a previously unexplored metal-rich asteroid of the same name. It is part of the agency’s Discovery Program, a line of low-cost, competitive missions led by a single principal investigator. 

    NASA continues to assess options for its Janus mission exploring twin binary asteroid systems, which was originally scheduled to launch on the same SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as Psyche. NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration, testing high-data-rate laser communications, is integrated into the Psyche spacecraft and will continue as planned on the new launch date.

    Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, is providing the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is managing the launch. Psyche is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

    For more information about the Psyche mission, visit:

    https://www.nasa.gov/psyche

    Resource : https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-continues-psyche-asteroid-mission