Exploring Psyche

As you ponder summer projects, consider this one: NASA's Psyche mission was originally expected to lift off in 2022. But the two-month launch window opened and closed last fall before the flight software was ready. Then COVID reverberations and accompanying staffing issues delayed the mission further.

Here is the fun part: The Psyche spacecraft is set to launch this October, according to an announcement from NASA this week. The Psyche mission will be the first NASA spacecraft designed to study a metallic asteroid.

Engineers in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have uncovered and corrected a compatibility issue in the software's test bed simulators, working to ensure that all will function as expected once the spacecraft takes off. When it launches in October 2023, the spacecraft will travel on a 280 million-mile journey to the asteroid named Psyche, reaching it by August 2029, and then orbit the metallic asteroid for 26 months. According to NASA, the asteroid is so "metal-rich" that it may be either a plant-in-the-making or the exposed core of a planet. Collisions with other objects in space have likely stripped the planet's outer layers away, leaving its metallic core exposed.

In a nutshell, NASA will have an opportunity to explore the core of a planet similar to Earth.

TheEarth is the Lord’s, and all it contains,
The world, and those who dwell in it.

-- Psalm 24:1

As you enjoy the sunshine and step into new summer projects, it can be helpful to add a NASA perspective from time to time: decades of research, months of delay, millions of miles, and years of travel. And in the not-so-distant future, we will have images of a proto-center of our Earth. When your world seems small, imagine the miracles millions of miles above you.

Blessings on your week,

Jennie