Psyche

A highly anticipated mission to Venus is in trouble after NASA pulled all of its funding, save for a tiny fraction meant to keep the planetary orbiter on brittle life support as its fate hangs in the balance.Last week, NASA released its budget request for 2024 with a proposed total of $27.2 billion, of which $3.383 billion would be allocated towards planetary science. However, the space agency only requested $1.5 million for its Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mission, a…

NASA’s Perseverance rover being outfitted with its wheels at JPL on June 13, 2019.Photo: NASA/JPL-CaltechFollowing the release of an independent review examining the delay of NASA’s Psyche mission, the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) says it’s making progress in addressing the broader issues at the institution that went beyond its delayed asteroid mission.During the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group last week, JPL Director Laurie Leshin highlighted changes that were made in an effort to fix some of…

As follow-ups to chart-topping albums go, Ugly begins in pretty uncompromising style. True, opener Yum commences with lyrics that lean towards the kind of positive personal affirmations that now proliferate in pop, lines you could imagine being belted out over a big power-ballad chorus: “You are great, you are good, you’re a king, you’re a queen, you’re a genius.” But their message of self-love is undercut by the rest of the track: an unsettling synth tone that becomes more percussive and relentless, the sound of someone…

Scientists have found evidence of two unique minerals in a massive 15000 kilogram meteorite which once hit the Earth. This big discovery can shed more light into the composition of the universe. The universe is unimaginably vast and we, the Earthlings, have only explored a small fraction of it. According to latest estimates, there are around 100-200 billion galaxies in the universe. And we have had a close view of less than 1 percent of our own galaxy. This opens up the question of how different the universe is…

Artist’s depiction of the VERITAS Venus mission.Image: NASA/JPLNASA’s JPL is struggling with issues related to budget, staffing, and poor communications, forcing the space agency to delay a highly anticipated mission to Venus.During the annual meeting of the Venus Exploration Analysis Group on Monday, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division Lori Glaze described the mission delay as “the most painful thing I’ve ever had to do probably in my whole life.” However, Glaze said that in trying to address challenges…

NASA recently announced that its mission to visit a metal asteroid, Psyche, has a new launch date of October 2023. The mission had originally been scheduled for August 2022 but missed its launch date due to not having enough time for testing all the equipment and software. To make sure the mission launches as planned this time, staff will be moved off the planned VERITAS mission to Venus, which will now be delayed by three years. Following the Psyche spacecraft missing its launch date, NASA and its Jet Propulsion…

An illustration of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft.Illustration: NASAA NASA mission to explore one of the most intriguing objects in the asteroid belt is getting a second chance. The Psyche mission is now targeting a launch period in 2023 after missing its initial window this year due to development delays.NASA decided to go ahead with its Psyche mission following an internal review of the issues that led to its delay, the space agency announced on Friday. The mission is now targeting a new launch window that opens on October…

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter RubinIn June, NASA's Psyche asteroid mission, the agency's first mission designed to study a metal-rich asteroid, was delayed due to mission development problems. As a result, the agency had to reevaluate if the mission was capable of overcoming these challenges for a 2023 launch date or if the mission should be terminated. On Friday, NASA announced that they have decided to move forward with the mission with a new projected 2023 launch period opening on…

NASA’s Psyche mission will explore a unique metallic asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid, likely made largely of nickel-iron metal mixed with rock, could contain metal from the core of a planetesimal (the building block of an early rocky planet) and may offer a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created the terrestrial planets like Earth. Credit: NASAThe mission team continues to complete testing of the spacecraft’s flight software in preparation for the…

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, set to visit a mysterious metal asteroid, has been given a new launch date following a delay to its launch which was originally set for August 2022. The spacecraft missed its launch date due to technical problems with its software which were announced in June, but now it will launch in October 2023 instead. By launching at this time, the spacecraft can follow a flight profile similar to the previously planned one. The spacecraft will perform a flyby of Mars for a gravity assist in 2026 and…