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Space Exploration

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ExoMars discovers hidden water in Mars’ Grand Canyon
https://www.esa.int/Science_Explora...s_discovers_hidden_water_in_Mars_Grand_Canyon
The ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has spotted significant amounts of water at the heart of Mars’ dramatic canyon system, Valles Marineris.

The water, which is hidden beneath Mars’ surface, was found by the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO)’s FREND instrument, which is mapping the hydrogen – a measure of water content – in the uppermost metre of Mars’ soil.

While water is known to exist on Mars, most is found in the planet’s cold polar regions as ice. Water ice is not found exposed at the surface near the equator, as temperatures here are not cold enough for exposed water ice to be stable.

Missions including ESA’s Mars Express have hunted for near-surface water – as ice covering dust grains in the soil, or locked up in minerals – at lower latitudes of Mars, and found small amounts. However, such studies have only explored the very surface of the planet; deeper water stores could exist, covered by dust.

“With TGO we can look down to one metre below this dusty layer and see what’s really going on below Mars’ surface – and, crucially, locate water-rich ‘oases’ that couldn’t be detected with previous instruments,” says Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia; lead author of the new study; and principal investigator of the FREND (Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector) neutron telescope.


Trace Gas Orbiter at Mars
“FREND revealed an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the colossal Valles Marineris canyon system: assuming the hydrogen we see is bound into water molecules, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water.”

The water-rich area is about the size of the Netherlands and overlaps with the deep valleys of Candor Chaos, part of the canyon system considered promising in our hunt for water on Mars.

Tracking neutrons
Igor and colleagues analysed FREND observations ranging from May 2018 to February 2021, which mapped the hydrogen content of Mars’ soil by detecting neutrons rather than light.

“Neutrons are produced when highly energetic particles known as ‘galactic cosmic rays’ strike Mars; drier soils emit more neutrons than wetter ones, and so we can deduce how much water is in a soil by looking at the neutrons it emits,” adds co-author Alexey Malakhov, also of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “FREND’s unique observing technique brings far higher spatial resolution than previous measurements of this type, enabling us to now see water features that weren’t spotted before.

“We found a central part of Valles Marineris to be packed full of water – far more water than we expected. This is very much like Earth’s permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures.”


ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter maps water-rich region of Valles Marineris
This water could be in the form of ice, or water that is chemically bound to other minerals in the soil. However, other observations tell us that minerals seen in this part of Mars typically contain only a few percent water, much less than is evidenced by these new observations. “Overall, we think this water more likely exists in the form of ice,” says Alexey.

Water ice usually evaporates in this region of Mars due to the temperature and pressure conditions near the equator. The same applies to chemically bound water: the right combination of temperature, pressure and hydration must be there to keep minerals from losing water. This suggests that some special, as-yet-unclear mix of conditions must be present in Valles Marineris to preserve the water – or that it is somehow being replenished.

“This finding is an amazing first step, but we need more observations to know for sure what form of water we’re dealing with,” adds study co-author Håkan Svedhem of ESA’s ESTEC in the Netherlands, and former ESA project scientist for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

“Regardless of the outcome, the finding demonstrates the unrivalled abilities of TGO’s instruments in enabling us to ‘see’ below Mars’ surface – and reveals a large, not-too-deep, easily exploitable reservoir of water in this region of Mars.”

Future exploration
As most future missions to Mars plan to land at lower latitudes, locating such a reservoir of water here is an exciting prospect for future exploration.

While Mars Express has found hints of water deeper underground in Mars’ mid-latitudes, alongside deep pools of liquid water under Mars’ south pole, these potential stores lie up to a few kilometres below ground, making them less exploitable and accessible to exploration than any found just below the surface.

The finding also makes Valles Marineris an even more promising target for future human exploration missions to the planet. The largest canyon in the Solar System, Valles Marineris is arguably Mars’ most dramatic landscape, and a feature that is often compared to Earth’s Grand Canyon – despite being some ten times longer and five times deeper.


Perspective view of Candor Chasma
“This result really demonstrates the success of the joint ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars programme,” says Colin Wilson, ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter project scientist.

“Knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars’ once-abundant water, and helps our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life, and organic materials from Mars’ earliest days.”

TGO launched in 2016 as the first of two launches under the ExoMars programme. The orbiter will be joined in 2022 by a European rover, Rosalind Franklin, and a Russian surface platform, Kazachok, and all will work together to understand whether life has ever existed on Mars.

Notes for editors
“The evidence for unusually high hydrogen abundances in the central part of Valles Marineris on Mars” by I. Mitrofanov et al. is published in the journal Icarus.
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@3074326
 
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'Christmas comet' to zip through sky, won't be back for 80,000 years
By Brian Lada, Accuweather.com
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/12/16/Christmas-comet-Leonard-astronomy/1301639680124/
Comet Leonard seen with the help of a telescope on November 28. Photo courtesy of University of Hertfordshire Observatory
The 2020 holiday season featured a "Christmas star" when Jupiter and Saturn appeared extremely close and shined together, and this year, stargazers are in for another gift as the brightest comet of 2021 races through the evening sky.

Comet C/2021 A1, more commonly referred to as comet Leonard, was discovered earlier this year and made its closest approach to the Earth on Sunday. Before its approach, it was visible only in the early morning sky, but its journey has now made it more prominent in the evening sky, making it a target for backyard stargazers.


The "Christmas comet" will appear in the evening sky throughout the rest of the year, but folks should look for it sooner rather than later as it will become dimmer and dimmer heading into the final days of December.

Comet Leonard is not expected to be a repeat of comet NEOWISE, which impressed stargazers last year on its journey through the inner solar system.

"Based on how bright comet Leonard has been appearing recently, it looks like it will not be as bright as last year's comet NEOWISE," said Gordon Johnston, a program executive at NASA headquarters.

"This comet should be visible with a backyard telescope or binoculars and may be visible to the naked eye under very clear and dark observing conditions," Johnston said.

Even with the help of a telescope or binoculars, it will look like a fuzzy green star with a small tail.

Friday will be a good opportunity to spot the comet as it will appear directly below Venus after sunset.

The fuzzy green comet will continue to glow below and to the left of Venus through the weekend before eventually shifting directly to the left of Venus by Christmas.

"Viewers will need a clear view of the horizon, as the comet will only be a few degrees above the horizon as evening twilight ends," Johnston said.

The coming nights will be the only chance to see comet Leonard as it will not swing past the Earth again for another 80,000 years.

After comet Leonard fades into the depths of the solar system, it is difficult to say for sure when another comet will emerge from the darkness and become bright enough to see with the naked eye.

The University of Hawai'i discovered comet C/2021 O3 (PANSTARRS) earlier this year and predicts that it could be bright enough to see without the help of a telescope or binoculars in late April or early May of 2022, but it is difficult to say for certain.

"Comets are notoriously difficult to predict in terms of brightness and visibility," NASA explained. "With comets, you really never know."
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How water arrived on Earth
To find the origin of the oceans, look in outer space
Tiny grains from an asteroid provide clues to the details

https://www.economist.com/science-a...in-of-the-oceans-look-in-outer-space/21806551
(Might be a paywall)

Earth—the quintessential blue planet—has not always been covered by water. Around 4.6bn years ago, in the solar system’s early years, the energetic young sun’s radiation meant the zone immediately surrounding it was hot and dry. Earth, then coalescing from dust and gas in this region, thus began as a desiccated rock. How it subsequently acquired its oceans has long puzzled planetary scientists.

One possible source of Earth’s water is carbonaceous (c-type) asteroids, the most common variety. But it cannot be the sole source, because water in chunks of these that have landed as meteorites does not match the isotopic fingerprint of terrestrial water. This fingerprint is the ratio of normal water (H2O, made from hydrogen and oxygen) to heavy water (D2O and HDO, which both include deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen that has a neutron in its nucleus alongside the proton characteristic of every hydrogen atom). Water from c-type asteroids has more deuterium in it than does terrestrial water.

Another possibility is comets, which are basically dirty snowballs that arrive from the outer solar system. A barrage of these a few hundred million years after Earth’s formation would have done the job nicely. But samples returned from comets by spacecraft suggest their isotopic fingerprint is even less Earthlike than that of c-type asteroids. So, as Luke Daly, a planetary geoscientist at the University of Glasgow, in Britain, observes: “It basically means we need something else in our solar system, some other reservoir of water to be on the lighter side to balance the books.”

In their search for this reservoir, Dr Daly’s team recently studied grains of silicate dust from another sample-return mission, to an asteroid called Itokawa (pictured). This is an s-type (stony) body, with a composition different from that of c-types. The grains had been brought back by Hayabusa, a Japanese craft, in 2011.

Grains of this sort formed at the same time as Earth, and then spent the intervening billions of years orbiting the sun, occasionally gathering into tiny rocks or falling onto the surfaces of asteroids, such as Itokawa, to create a fine-grained regolith. Most, though, have remained free-floating. Indeed, they are collectively visible at sunrise and sunset, in clear, dark skies, as a faint glow known as the Zodiacal light.

Using a technique called atom-probe tomography, Dr Daly was able to examine the composition of the grains in his possession one atom at a time. He found, as he describes in this week’s Nature Astronomy, that they contained a significant amount of water just below their surfaces. That surprised him. What was intriguing, though, was his discovery’s lack of deuterium.

Dr Daly reckons this water’s existence can be explained by weathering of the space dust over billions of years by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles—mostly protons—that flows out into space from the sun. When they hit a particle of space dust, these protons penetrate a few nanometres below the surface and change its chemical composition. In particular, if a proton knocks out one of the metal atoms in a silicate’s crystal lattice, it is then likely to bond with an adjacent oxygen atom to form a hydroxide ion (OH-). Add a second proton, possibly billions of years later, and you have deuterium-free water. The result, in these samples, at least, was the equivalent of 20 litres of water for every cubic metre of rock.

Doing the sums, Dr Daly thinks about half of Earth’s water derives from c-type asteroids, with an admixture of comets. The rest, which dilutes the deuterium in this, is the result of grains of weathered space dust falling through Earth’s atmosphere throughout the planet’s history, burning up as they did so and freeing their microscopic aqueous payloads to rain down, literally, on the planet’s surface.

This finding, moreover, also hints that water could accumulate anywhere in the solar system which the solar wind can reach—the surface of the Moon, for example, as well as asteroids. That is good news for space explorers. In such places, the weathered dust could be a source of water for astronauts.
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5 STAR U-G-A said:
'Christmas comet' to zip through sky, won't be back for 80,000 years
By Brian Lada, Accuweather.com
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/12/16/Christmas-comet-Leonard-astronomy/1301639680124/
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Per https://www.spaceweather.com/:

COMET LEONARD IS APPROACHING VENUS: Later today, Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) will pass by Venus only 4.2 million km away. It's the closest comet-Venus encounter in recorded history. Daniele Gasparri photographed the pair on Dec. 16th over the Atacama desert in Chile:



"At last Comet Leonard has appeared in the southern sky," says Gasparri. "It is still very low on the horizon. The comet is barely visible to the naked eye (it may have been my imagination), but it is easy to spot with small binoculars."

Gasparri's image is a composite. "The wide field view is a 2 second exposure with a 100 mm lens. Inset is a photo taken with a Newtonian 130 mm telescope and an ASI 2600MC camera (21x30 seconds)," explains Gasparri. "The comet has a huge coma and a twisted tail."

Current estimates of the comet's brightness put it at magnitude +4, a little dimmer than it was yesterday. If it were in the midnight sky, the comet would be easy to see with the naked eye. In the twilight glow of sunset, however, optics are required.
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Satellite operators criticize “extreme” megaconstellation filings
by Jeff Foust
https://spacenews.com/satellite-operators-criticize-extreme-megaconstellation-filings/

TelesatConstellation-879x485.jpg

Telesat, which is planning a constellation of a few hundred satellites, is among the operators critical of filings for systems with tens to hundreds of thousands of satellites. Credit: Telesat


PARIS — Established satellite operators expressed their frustration at the wave of filings for enormous satellite constellations, arguing nations need to step forward and establish rules to curtail such systems.

The best known of such filings is one by the government of Rwanda with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in September, which proposed two constellations with a combined 327,230 satellites. Rwanda has launched to date a single satellite, a three-unit cubesat called RwaSat-1 in 2019.

Companies have also made filings for large constellations. Kepler, the Canadian company developing a relatively modest satellite constellation, filed through the German government a proposed system called Aether with nearly 115,000 satellites. The company said Nov. 18 that the figure includes all satellites with an Aether terminal installed, not just the company’s own satellites, but the total is far larger than all operational satellites in orbit today.

“My view is, this is what happens when there are no penalties for bad behavior, or behavior not entirely consistent with the way the industry has behaved up to a certain point in time,” said Steve Collar, chief executive of SES, during a Dec. 13 panel discussion at Euroconsult’s World Satellite Business Week. “As a result, we’ve got a whole bunch of exuberant filings, most of which won’t happen.”

“From an economic standpoint, an overcapacity standpoint, these extreme filings do not make any sense,” said Michel Azibert, deputy chief executive of Eutelsat. Systems already in active development by companies like Amazon, OneWeb, SpaceX and Telesat, along with high-throughput satellites in geostationary orbit, already provide far more capacity than projected demand, he argued. “If you start doubling or tripling the capacity, it doesn’t make any sense.”

The concern both raised is that some of these proposed constellations do attempt to at least start deployment. “We’re running the risk of having a totally congested space,” Azibert said. “The risks of collision are exponential.”

He was critical of both the ITU and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which recently accepted applications for a series of V-band constellations that included a proposal by Astra Space for a 13,600-satellite system. “I don’t see the ITU being extremely proactive on that. I see the FCC starting something like they are the world’s regulator on licensing spectrum in LEO and NGSO in general.”

“We should not be captured by the hype and say the more constellations the better for mankind, because it’s not true. It’s the contrary, in my opinion,” Azibert said.

Mark Dankberg, chairman of Viasat, said the issue needs to be taken up at the national level as proposed systems seek landing rights from national regulators. “Filings are becoming virtually irrelevant. Even getting a filing through the ITU doesn’t really mean anything. What’s going to become the big issue is getting landing rights,” he said. “That’s the area that we’ll start to see reactions where countries realize that granting landing rights to systems that are disproportionately occupying space is just not good for them.”

Dan Goldberg, president and chief executive of Telesat, said he shared those concerns even as Telesat develops its Lightspeed constellation. “The problem with our industry,” he said, “is that the ITU doesn’t have enforcement powers.”

He called for “key countries” in Europe, Asia and the Americas to work together on this issue. “The countries that are ultimately launching these seems to be a logical place for them to come together and introduce some rules that ensure that the risks that we’ve been talking about today are addressed and managed,” he said. “It won’t be easy but it’s got to be done.”

“The single biggest problem isn’t that the ITU doesn’t have enforcement powers. It’s that the ITU has zero regulations around orbital congestion,” Dankberg said. “All they’re dealing with is spectrum. Nobody anticipated an environment where there would be so many satellites that the physical congestion of orbits would be a dominant issue.”

“What happens if all of these constellations try to build? I think we’ll have an unsustainable situation very, very quickly,” Collar warned. “We probably won’t realize it until it’s too late. Now is the time for the industry to start getting a bit more responsible.”
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For further context on this story:

The future of satellites lies in the constellations
Numerous companies are planning to launch and operate swarms of small satellites in coming years. Earth orbit is about to get crowded.
By Nathaniel Scharping


FoxPictures/Shutterstock
When Sputnik 1, the first satellite, was launched by the Russians in 1957, low Earth orbit was a lonely place. Today, just six decades later, the space around Earth looks far different. Thousands of satellites whiz around our planet at varying altitudes at speeds approaching 20,000 miles per hour. Of the more than 11,000 satellites that have ever been launched, there are roughly 3,000 currently active, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Satellite Database.

That number could pale in comparison to the satellite population by the end of the decade, though. Some estimates show that more than 100,000 satellites could orbit our planet by 2030, an exponential increase that has many scientists worried.

The steep rise in satellite numbers will likely come largely from so-called satellite constellations, groups of dozens or even hundreds of small satellites united in a common task. The most well-known of these is likely SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which delivers internet access to remote places. The company has over 1,500 satellites currently in orbit, and founder Elon Musk plans for tens of thousands one day.


They’ll share space with satellites from dozens of companies and nations, put there to enable communications, provide weather data, take photos, carry out experiments and more. These satellite swarms could bring internet access to remote villages, enable scientists to keep tabs on climate change with new precision and more. But they could also interfere with astronomers’ ability to watch the night sky, and pose new hazards to manned missions to space. Space is certainly going to get more crowded soon — the effects of which will remain to be seen.

More satellites are better
There are two factors likely to drive the explosion in satellite numbers. One is the advent of private spaceflight companies, which have provided the rockets needed to bring large numbers of satellites to orbit. The other is CubeSats, small, modular satellites that are cheaper to build, and easier to take to orbit than traditional custom-built satellites.

Because they’re small, it costs far less to take a CubeSat weighing perhaps a few dozen pounds to orbit than a larger satellite weighing over a thousand pounds. And CubeSats, unlike built-to-order satellites, can be manufactured quickly and more cheaply. Those cost efficiencies have made it feasible for companies like SpaceX to imagine creating and launching thousands of satellites in just a few years.

Satellite swarms offer a few key advantages over traditional satellites, especially for communications and internet access. Normally when a satellite orbits Earth, it must go extremely quickly, meaning it won’t stay in range to deliver, say, broadband for long. Geostationary satellites solve this problem by orbiting exactly as fast as the Earth does, but the tradeoff is that they must remain very far away: 22,236 miles versus a few hundred for low Earth orbit. That means transmissions take far longer and need more power — not ideal when you’re trying to ensure fast internet access.

But a constellation of many satellites can stay in low Earth orbit while ensuring that one or several of its members is in range of ground-based transmitters and receivers at all times. That means the constellation can talk to, or keep an eye on, the same places on Earth at all times. With enough satellites, the constellation could reach every point on the planet 24/7 — the ultimate goal of many satellite constellation providers.

Sharing low Earth orbit
The first satellite constellations actually date back decades. The Global Positioning System, or GPS, relies on a network of at least 24 satellites orbiting Earth, maintained by the U.S. government. Today, everything from smartphones to mapping apps to financial systems rely on GPS to operate. Similar systems, like the European Union’s Galileo Network and Russia’s GLONASS also rely on their own groups of satellites. On the commercial side, the privately-owned Iridium network of 66 spacecraft has been providing satellite phone coverage for more than two decades.

Today, many of the satellites in orbit are involved in communications. That holds true for satellite constellations as well, many of which are aimed at providing internet access, à la Starlink. Europe’s O3b began offering satellite internet to clients in 2014 using its own network of spacecraft. OneWeb, which has partnered with Airbus, plans to launch a total of 900 satellites in coming years to flesh out its own internet network. China, meanwhile, recently announced plans to put some13,000 satellites in space to establish its Gouwang internet program.

But it’s not all about the internet in space. San Francisco’s Planet Labs is using nearly 200 Dove satellites to continually photograph the entire planet. These images allow them to provide pictures of Earth’s surface at 3 to 5 meters resolution, updated multiple times a day in some cases, the company says. They’re aiming to nab clients in industries ranging from agriculture to research to infrastructure.

Spire, another imaging and space-based monitoring company, offers services like ship and aircraft tracking and weather monitoring using its proprietary satellite network. GHGSat’s satellites track emissions on Earth, searching for methane leaks and other sources of greenhouse gases. The company hopes to have 10 satellites in orbit by the end of 2022.

Another company, Cloud Constellation, is attempting to solve another problem entirely. The startup hopes to convince companies to store their data in orbit, in servers aboard its satellite swarm.

Risks of reaching for the stars
An exponential increase in the number of metal boxes flying through near-Earth space poses a number of risks, some more obvious than others. Some come from astronomers, who worry that swarms of satellites will interfere with their observations of deep space.

Those concerns were put on display almost immediately after SpaceX began launching Starlink satellites to orbit. A photo taken at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona in May 2019 reveals dozens of bright streaks obscuring the sky as Starlink spacecraft flew overhead. The photo is a bit of an exaggeration, as the satellites continued to spread out after launch. But it could be a harbinger of the crowd to come.

More satellites could also mean more radio frequency transmissions flying about the atmosphere. In addition to looking visible light, astronomers monitor the sky across much of the electromagnetic spectrum, including in radio frequencies. Radio waves can travel through things that block light, like dust, meaning astronomers can see things otherwise obscured. Images of new galaxies, pulsars, quasars, and even the first-ever image of a black hole have come thanks to radio telescopes.

More satellites in orbit also increases the odds of collisions. Two spacecraft smashing into each other at speeds of tens of thousands of miles an hour might lead to the dreaded Kessler Syndrome, a feedback loop of destruction that could render Earth orbit a no-fly zone for decades. The process is simple: An initial collision creates a cloud of thousands of pieces of debris whipping around the planet. Some of these pieces hit other spacecraft, creating more debris, and the result is a cascade of satellite mayhem. The resulting cloud of debris might be dense enough that any spacecraft put into orbit would be destroyed, putting a premature end to the satellite era.

That eventuality could be averted by ongoing efforts to clean up low-Earth orbit, where an estimated 12,000 trackable pieces of debris already circulate. Some of those are from past satellite accidents, such as the 2009 collision between a defunct Russian satellite and an Iridium satellite. While the odds of a spacecraft being damaged by debris remain slim, it’s still cause for caution. The International Space Station has been moved on multiple occasions to minimize the risk of being hit by nearby objects.


And more satellites above us could result in changes to our planet, too. A recent study estimates that Starlink’s satellites alone might bring more aluminum into the upper atmosphere upon re-entry than meteoroids do. That extra metal might damage the ozone layer, some scientists speculate, further harming the environment. It’s a reminder of one of the fundamental principles of satellite operation: What we put up into orbit will someday come back down to Earth.
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Dec 20, 2021
How NASA’s Psyche Mission Will Explore an Unexplored World
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/how-nasa-s-psyche-mission-will-explore-an-unexplored-world

For more information about NASA’s Psyche mission go to:
http://www.nasa.gov/psyche
and
https://psyche.asu.edu/


An illustration, created in March 2021, of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which is targeted to launch to the main asteroid belt in August 2022 to investigate the metal-rich asteroid Psyche.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Meet asteroid Psyche

Psyche spacecraft chassis arrives at JPL

Launching in August 2022 and arriving at the asteroid belt in 2026, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will orbit a world we can barely pinpoint from Earth and have never visited.



The target of NASA’s Psyche mission – a metal-rich asteroid, also called Psyche, in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter – is an uncharted world in outer space. From Earth- and space-based telescopes, the asteroid appears as a fuzzy blur. What scientists do know, from radar data, is that it’s shaped somewhat like a potato and that it spins on its side.



By analyzing light reflected off the asteroid, scientists hypothesize that asteroid Psyche is unusually rich in metal. One possible explanation is that it formed early in our solar system, either as a core of a planetesimal – a piece of a planet – or as primordial material that never melted. This mission aims to find out, and in the process of doing so, they expect to help answer fundamental questions about the formation of our solar system.



“If it turns out to be part of a metal core, it would be part of the very first generation of early cores in our solar system,” said Arizona State University’s Lindy Elkins-Tanton, who as principal investigator leads the Psyche mission. “But we don’t really know, and we won’t know anything for sure until we get there. We wanted to ask primary questions about the material that built planets. We’re filled with questions and not a lot of answers. This is real exploration.”


This illustration shows how NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will explore asteroid Psyche, starting with a high-altitude Orbit A and gradually lowering into Orbit D as it conducts its science investigation.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech



Elkins-Tanton led the group that proposed Psyche as a NASA Discovery-class mission; it was selected in 2017. A huge challenge, she said, was choosing the mission’s science instruments: How do you make sure you’ll get the data you need when you’re not sure of what, specifically, you’ll be measuring?



For example, to determine what exactly the asteroid is made of and whether it’s part of a planetesimal core, scientists needed instruments that could account for a range of possibilities: nickel, iron, different kinds of rock, or rock and metal mixed together.



They selected a payload suite that includes a magnetometer to measure any magnetic field; imagers to photograph and map the surface; and spectrometers to indicate what the surface is made of by measuring the gamma rays and neutrons emitted from it. Scientists continue to hypothesize about what Psyche is made of, but “no one’s been able to come up with a Psyche that we can’t handle with the science instruments we have,” Elkins-Tanton said.


This illustration depicts the 140-mile-wide (226-kilometer-wide) asteroid Psyche, the target of NASA’s mission of the same name. Based on data obtained from Earth, scientists believe the asteroid is a mixture of metal and rock.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU



How to Tour an Unknown World



But before scientists can put those instruments to work, they’ll need to reach the asteroid and get into orbit. After launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in August 2022, Psyche will sail past Mars nine months later, using the planet’s gravitational force to slingshot itself toward the asteroid. It’s a total journey of about 1.5 billion miles (2.4 billion kilometers).



The spacecraft will begin its final approach to the asteroid in late 2025. As the spacecraft gets closer to its target, the mission team will turn its cameras on, and the visual of asteroid Psyche will morph from the fuzzy blob we know now into high-definition, revealing surface features of this strange world for the first time. The imagery also will help engineers get their bearings as they prepare to slip into orbit in January 2026. The spacecraft’s initial orbit is designed to be at a high, safe altitude – about 435 miles (700 kilometers) above the asteroid’s surface.



During this first orbit, Psyche’s mission design and navigation team will be laser-focused on measuring the asteroid’s gravity field, the force that will keep the spacecraft in orbit. With an understanding of the gravity field, the team can then safely navigate the spacecraft closer and closer to the surface as the science mission is carried out in just under two years.



Psyche appears to be lumpy, wider across (173 miles, or 280 kilometers, at its widest point) than it is from top to bottom, with an uneven distribution of mass. Some parts may be less dense, like a sponge, and some may be more tightly packed and more massive. The parts of Psyche with more mass will have higher gravity, exerting a stronger pull on the spacecraft.


Scientists don’t yet have images of the asteroid Psyche; this interactive version is based on modeling. To see how it compares to other asteroids, zoom in and give it a spin. View the full interactive experience and fly along with the mission in real time at Eyes on the Solar System. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To solve the gravity-field mystery, the mission team will use the spacecraft’s telecommunications system. By measuring subtle changes in the X-band radio waves bouncing back and forth between the spacecraft and the large Deep Space Networkantennas around Earth, engineers can precisely determine the asteroid’s mass, gravity field, rotation, orientation, and wobble.



The team has been working up scenarios and have devised thousands of “possible Psyches” – simulating variations in the asteroid’s density and mass, and orientation of its spin axis – to lay the groundwork for the orbital plan. They can test their models in computer simulations, but there’s no way to know for sure until the spacecraft actually gets there.



Over the following 20 months, the spacecraft will use its gentle electric propulsion system to dip into lower and lower orbits. Measurements of the gravity field will grow more precise as the spacecraft gets closer, and images of the surface will become higher resolution, allowing the team to improve their understanding of the body. Eventually, the spacecraft will establish a final orbit about 53 miles (85 kilometers) above the surface.



It’s all in an effort to solve the riddles of this unique asteroid: Where did Psyche come from, what is it made of, and what does it tell us about the formation of our solar system?



“Humans have always been explorers,” Elkins-Tanton said. “We’ve always set out from where we are to find out what is over that hill. We always want to go farther; we always want to imagine. It’s inherent in us. We don’t know what we’re going to find, and I’m expecting us to be entirely surprised.”



More About the Mission

ASU leads the Psyche mission. JPL is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. The mission phase – known as assembly, test and launch operations – is currently underway at JPL.

JPL also is providing a technology demonstration instrument called Deep Space Optical Communications that will fly on Psyche in order to test high-data-rate laser communications that could be used by future NASA missions.

Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program.
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I am actually pretty nervous about this, but only because of how huge it will be if this mission is a success. The engineering that has not only gone into the telescope, but the launch/unraveling/calibration of it in space makes me feel bad about myself for contributing nothing to society on a daily basis. But I appreciate the smart folk.

The James Webb Telescope is on the launch pad and set to launch on Christmas morning.

JWST will see galaxies formed ~100 million years after the big bang. It will be able to determine the atmospheric composition of exoplanets. It will be able to extract information from dust clouds to help study planetary/star creation. Its infrared capabilities will help identify planets similar to Earth's temperature, allow researchers to identify dust clouds forming planets, and study the universe's expansion due to the radiation emitted.

I'm not that smart, I parroted that from the FAQ on NASA's website. There's a lot more there.

It's also better than the best photographer of all time, which is Hubble.

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