NASA May Scrap Expensive Psyche Mission Offering Glimpse of the Past, Beginnings of Technological Future

It looks like the initiatives of NASA involving the Psyche mission are in trouble, as the space agency's update has revealed that its mission is currently under review and may eventually be canceled.

Announced in 2017 and originally scheduled for launch this summer, the much-delayed Psyche mission, or probably, according to a Futurism report, "was an endeavor to explore the metallic asteroid Psyche," an extraordinary resource-laden celestial body sandwiched by two planets, particularly Jupiter and Mars.

This mission has been in the works for years. https://t.co/Qwj98NtBYO
— Futurism (@futurism) July 16, 2022

The venture was lauded as an incredible opportunity to examine a world greatly different from the Earth's own while hopefully solving some hints about the origins of the universe.

NASA has stipulated that the assessment intends to investigate the "project and institutional issues" that have resulted in the alleged software-related delays of the uncrewed spacecraft.

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(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Peter Rubin)
Artist's rendering of the Psyche mission

Ample Amount Spent

According to a post online from the agency, the review will examine factors of workforce environment, schedule, communication, culture, and programmatic and technical risks.

Results of the study will contribute to the information of a continuation or termination review for the said mission.

To be fair, the said report specified that getting to the Psyche asteroid is not an easy task. The spacecraft is intended to launch into space on board the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, slingshot surrounding Mars, and then make the three-year journey to the far-off asteroid, where it would spend 21 months relaying imagery back to NASA scientists bound to Earth.

Regardless, an ample amount of money has already been spent on this project. More so, as this possible cancellation comes on the heels of a flurry of other major delays regarding very expensive Artemis missions, it is possibly fair to assume that NASA is feeling quite a deep frustration.

The Psyche Mission

According to a NASA report, what's making the asteroid Psyche extraordinary is that it seems to be the exposed "nickel-iron core" of an early planet, one of the solar system's building blocks.

Deep within rocky, terrestrial planets, which include Earth, researchers infer the existence of metallic cores, although these lie unreachably far beneath the rocky mantles of the planets, as well as their crusts.

Since the Earth's core cannot be directly seen or gauged, Psyche offers an extraordinary window into the collisions and accretion's violent history that created terrestrial planets.

Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory is accountable for mission management, navigation, and operations.

Moreover, the solar-electric propulsion chassis will be constructed by Maxar Technologies with a payload that comprises a magnetometer, imager, and a gamma-ray spectrometer.

A Glimpse of the Deep Past

Essentially, according to a separate NASA report, the asteroid Psyche provides a unique window into the said building blocks of planet formation and the opportunity to examine a previously unexplored type of world.

Furthermore, the Psyche spacecraft will provide more than a glimpse of the deep past; the beginnings of the technological future can be seen.

Rather than the traditional rocket fuel, Psyche will slowly build up speed through ion propulsion. The electricity from the solar panels of the space probe will power a new thruster type known as a "Hall thruster" for the first time in deep space.

Xenon gas is converted to ions discharged from the spacecraft to offer thrust. The release, at first, is slow, but it builds steadily upon the acceleration of Psyche.

Related information about NASA's Psyche Mission is shown on NASA's YouTube video below: