NASA’s spacecraft embarked on a 6-year journey towards Pysche, a metal-rich asteroid, with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The journey and research to the asteroid, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is expected to cost a total of 1.2 billion dollars. Beyond the examination of precious metals on the meteorite, which is rich in metals, it is planned to conduct research on deep space optical communication.
Saturday, October 14, 2023, 18:38
Update: Saturday, October 14, 2023, 18:42
HANDE BERKTAN
Spacecraft of the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
SpaceX embarked on a 6-year journey with its Falcon Heavy rocket towards Psyche, an asteroid very rich in metal. The mission of the space journey is planned to conduct research on deep space optical communication, beyond the examination of precious metals on the meteorite, which is rich in precious metals.
After the Falcon Heavy lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the Psyche spacecraft successfully separated from the top of the rocket just over an hour after liftoff, and NASA engineers contacted it shortly thereafter.
Psyche (the spacecraft) has now embarked on a 2.2 billion-mile journey to Psyche, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will perform the technology demonstration of the Deep Space Optical Communication experiment before reaching its target. If successful, it will be the first demonstration of optical communication beyond the Earth-moon system.
The spacecraft will reach Mars in May 2026 and use that planet’s gravitational field to propel itself to the target asteroid. Once there, Psyche will spend 26 months orbiting the metal-rich asteroid for the first time studying a space object with a metal surface. The spacecraft will take multispectral images, map the asteroid’s surface and study its chemical and mineral composition. The spacecraft is also equipped with other instruments, such as a radio antenna and spectrometer, to study the asteroid’s gravitational field and high-energy particles.
NASA will use Falcon Heavy many times in the coming years. Falcon Heavy, the second most powerful rocket in operation today, has flown seven times to date. Falcon Heavy’s Psyche mission was the rocket’s first mission for NASA. NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth approximately $131 million for the launch, but NASA is scheduled to spend more than $1.2 billion for the overall research mission of this spaceflight.
2023-10-14 15:38:55
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