After being delayed last summer, an independently selected review board has given NASA and the organization’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) permission to move forward with the plan to deliver a spacecraft to asteroid Psyche.
Following the mission team’s request to postpone the spacecraft’s scheduled launch in August 2022, NASA and JPL gathered the board last summer.
NASA Asteroid Exploration Project Back on Track
The mission, which is appropriately called after the metal-rich asteroid with a market value of $10,000 quadrillion, plans to launch a spacecraft to explore the object, which is located roughly three times further from the Sun than Earth.
In November 2022, the independent review board released a comprehensive report that included recommendations aimed at resolving the issues that led to the delay.
The same board has determined that the Psyche project, JPL, and Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA, have all exceeded expectations.
According to the independent review board, the launch was postponed for a number of reasons, including work-related COVID-19 pandemic-related concerns at JPL.
They included management oversight, staffing, and communication.
According to a NASA blog, JPL’s reaction included directly addressing the issues about the Psyche project and the laboratory as a whole.
The team implemented thorough measures to track progress toward launch and operational readiness, acquired more seasoned team members, and reorganized a sizable section of its personnel.
With all the adjustments made, the report showed an improvement in the top management’s supervision of the mission.
The diameter of the asteroid Psyche is approximately 140 miles (226 kilometers), or one-sixteenth that of the moon. Following a flyby of Mars and a gravity assist, the Psyche spacecraft is intended to reach the asteroid using solar-electric (low-thrust) propulsion.
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Mission to Investigate the Asteroid
A multispectral imager, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, a magnetometer, and a radio instrument will be used by the spacecraft once it reaches the asteroid to map and investigate it (for gravity measurement).
Confirming the existence of a planetesimal core in the asteroid Psyche is the mission’s main objective.
The improvements made by JPL and NASA as well as all of the suggestions made by the independent review board can assist their missions, including the Europa Clipper and Mars Sample Return.
Just a few weeks after taking over as director of JPL, Laurie Leshin called the board and stated that our objectives went beyond getting Psyche to the launch pad and included improving JPL more broadly as we worked on missions that would help us understand Earth, explore the solar system and universe, and look for signs of life.
According to the statement, “JPL’s vigorous response to the board’s conclusions confirms the notion that JPL can confront any issue with the requisite focus and vigor.”
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