NASA Announces Delay of Its Psyche Mission to No Earlier Than September 20, Allowing More Time to Test Spacecraft Software

The Psyche mission of NASA has been moved to no earlier than September 20 this year, from its original August 1 schedule.

A Space.com report said that the delay in the planned launch of the Psyche mission of NASA to visit what is believed to be the exposed core of a protoplanet is disrupting plans for a pair of "tag-along satellites to visit other asteroids."

Psych originally planned to lift off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in early August but is now targeting a launch date, as mentioned, no later than September 20 to give more time for testing the spacecraft's software.

Meanwhile, the Janus mission, which will fly two smallsats as secondary payloads on the launch of Psyche, is planned to cruise by two different binary asteroid systems succeeding a series of Earth gravity assistance.

Largest Steroids to be Identified by the Psyche

Dan Scheeres, the principal investigator of Janus from the University of Colorado, said a mid-week launch delay means the first plan for the flight is no longer possible, a related report from SpaceNews specified.

As indicated in the same report, such flybys were crucial for setting up the flybys of the target binaries, 1991 VH and 1996 FG3, explained Scheeres, speaking at a meeting of the Small Bodies Assessment r SBAG of NASA.

The mission team is currently assessing potential substitute space rocks to fly by, with the principal investigator saying multiple steroids have been determined.

The most massive asteroids will be identified by the actual launch date of Psyche, which as a rideshare Janus, will need to accept, and constraints like flyby speed and communications data rates.

Janus is part of the NASA Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration or SIMPLEx program for low-cost planetary science smallsat missions.

Psyche to Originally Launch Janus and EscaPADE

NASA chose Janus as one of three missions in its SIMPLEx program with a cost cap of $55 million per mission. All three have issues with their plans to launch as rideshare payloads.

The Psyche launch was originally going to carry Janus and EscaPADE or Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorer, a smallsat mission to investigate the interaction between the Martian atmosphere and solar wind.

Nevertheless, a change in the launch of vehicles for the Psyche mission from Falcon 9 to Falcon Heavy altered the mission trajectory enough to no longer make it feasible to accommodate EscaPADE, and NASA halted work on the said mission in 2020.

EscaPADE detected new life last year when NASA approved a revised plan for the mission with the use of Photon spacecraft buses from Rocket Lab, with greater capabilities for propulsion, compared to the original design.

The twin EscaPADE spacecraft are now slated for the 2024 launch, although NASA has not announced how they will reach Mars.

A report about NASA's Psyche mission is shown on NASA's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on the SpaceX mission on Science Times.