NASA's Psyche Probe Journey and Discoveries
TapTechNews May 25th news, on October 13th last year, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched its Psyche probe with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and then this probe has been 'gliding' until now with the kinetic energy provided by the rocket, and has currently reached beyond the orbit of Mars.
The probe is expected to arrive at the metal asteroid Psyche of the same name in August 2029, with a total flight mileage of up to 2.2 billion miles (3.5 billion kilometers), and will orbit the asteroid for 26 months, and will also analyze its gravity, magnetism and composition through scanning.
NASA announced that the Psyche probe has passed the six-month inspection and found no problems, and it is currently more than 300 million miles away from the earth, and even if there are problems, it is already too late to recover. NASA said that the Psyche probe has activated its sci-fi-feeling thruster and is going full throttle towards the target asteroid.
As shown in the picture, its Hall thruster will emit a blue glow when going deeper into space, looking very sci-fi. In the entire next year, this spacecraft will be in the 'full cruise' mode to push it towards the asteroid belt.
According to the introduction, the working principle of its thruster is to eject charged atoms (ions), that is, xenon gas, so as to move forward at a speed of 23 miles per second (TapTechNews note: about 37 kilometers per second).
Due to the absence of atmospheric resistance, the Psyche probe is expected to accelerate to a speed of up to 124,000 miles per hour (200,000 kilometers per hour).
According to the plan, this spaceship will arrive at the Psyche asteroid in 2029 and will carry out a scientific exploration mission in orbit for about two years. The data it collects will be able to help scientists better understand the formation process of this rocky planet with a metal core, and thus better understand the earth.
At the same time, the deep-space optical communication technology carried on the spaceship will continue to conduct performance tests, and this experiment has already exceeded the expectations of scientific researchers. According to the introduction, in April this year, it has successfully transmitted test data to the earth from more than 140 million miles (226 million kilometers) away at a speed of 2.67 megabits per second.
