NASA Selects Two Missions to Explore the Early Solar System

FighterJock said:
Flyaway said:
The psyche mission won’t be going anywhere for the time being due to software issues. It says in the article that the people involved seemed remarkably hesitant to take any option off the table including cancelling the mission.

On Friday, NASA held a press call to announce that its planned mission to the asteroid Psyche, planned for launch this autumn, was on indefinite hold. While the spacecraft is ready and has been delivered to the Kennedy Space Center, there has been a delay in validating the software that will run the mission as it operates in remote areas of the Solar System.

That delay has pushed mission readiness past the point where the launch window closes due to alignment changes in the bodies Psyche will pass on its journey to the asteroid of the same name. NASA is saying that a mission review will evaluate all options ranging from cancellation to simply delaying the mission until the next time a window opens. Problematically, Psyche's launch included a ride-along for a separate asteroid mission called Janus that has its own launch windows, so the review will need to include NASA's entire Discovery Mission program more broadly.
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arstechnica.com

NASA’s Psyche mission launch on hold indefinitely pending reevaluation

The mission’s control software hasn’t been validated, and launch window is closing.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
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That is bad news about Psyche, and they are even considering cancelling the mission, Madness. :mad:
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I don’t think they will really cancel it TBH. But it’s definitely up in the air when it will actually launch.
 
Flyaway said:
FighterJock said:
Flyaway said:
The psyche mission won’t be going anywhere for the time being due to software issues. It says in the article that the people involved seemed remarkably hesitant to take any option off the table including cancelling the mission.

On Friday, NASA held a press call to announce that its planned mission to the asteroid Psyche, planned for launch this autumn, was on indefinite hold. While the spacecraft is ready and has been delivered to the Kennedy Space Center, there has been a delay in validating the software that will run the mission as it operates in remote areas of the Solar System.

That delay has pushed mission readiness past the point where the launch window closes due to alignment changes in the bodies Psyche will pass on its journey to the asteroid of the same name. NASA is saying that a mission review will evaluate all options ranging from cancellation to simply delaying the mission until the next time a window opens. Problematically, Psyche's launch included a ride-along for a separate asteroid mission called Janus that has its own launch windows, so the review will need to include NASA's entire Discovery Mission program more broadly.
Click to expand...

arstechnica.com

NASA’s Psyche mission launch on hold indefinitely pending reevaluation

The mission’s control software hasn’t been validated, and launch window is closing.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
Click to expand...

That is bad news about Psyche, and they are even considering cancelling the mission, Madness. :mad:
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I don’t think they will really cancel it TBH. But it’s definitely up in the air when it will actually launch.
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I think that if they do not cancel Psyche then I think that it could possibly be launched mid to late decade that will be either side of 2025 or even 2030, that is if the can quickly get all the software bugs sorted (Garbage In Garbage Out).
 
I wonder if they might have to consider switching to different targets. I know Psyche has special interest but the windows seem very limited to get there.
 
TomS said:
I wonder if they might have to consider switching to different targets. I know Psyche has special interest but the windows seem very limited to get there.
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They won’t switch targets as it is specifically designed to study that target. As you say the issue is the launch windows.
 
Flyaway said:
TomS said:
I wonder if they might have to consider switching to different targets. I know Psyche has special interest but the windows seem very limited to get there.
Click to expand...
They won’t switch targets as it is specifically designed to study that target. As you say the issue is the launch windows.
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Yeah, reading up, the main problem seems to be that the next couple of windows in 2023 and 2024 both take much longer to reach Psyche, increasing the cost to maintain the ground team by several years worth of salaries.
 
TomS said:
Flyaway said:
TomS said:
I wonder if they might have to consider switching to different targets. I know Psyche has special interest but the windows seem very limited to get there.
Click to expand...
They won’t switch targets as it is specifically designed to study that target. As you say the issue is the launch windows.
Click to expand...

Yeah, reading up, the main problem seems to be that the next couple of windows in 2023 and 2024 both take much longer to reach Psyche, increasing the cost to maintain the ground team by several years worth of salaries.
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Not looking good then TomS, I hope that they can at least mothball the mission and wait and see when the next window is better suited for launching Psyche.
 
TomS said:
Flyaway said:
TomS said:
I wonder if they might have to consider switching to different targets. I know Psyche has special interest but the windows seem very limited to get there.
Click to expand...
They won’t switch targets as it is specifically designed to study that target. As you say the issue is the launch windows.
Click to expand...

Yeah, reading up, the main problem seems to be that the next couple of windows in 2023 and 2024 both take much longer to reach Psyche, increasing the cost to maintain the ground team by several years worth of salaries.
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It has already meant the ride along payload is now looking for a new launcher.
 
After analyzing data gathered when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected a sample from asteroid Bennu in October 2020, scientists have learned something astonishing: The spacecraft would have sunk into Bennu had it not fired its thrusters to back away immediately after it grabbed dust and rock from the asteroid’s surface.



It turns out that the particles making up Bennu’s exterior are so loosely packed and lightly bound to each other that if a person were to step onto Bennu they would feel very little resistance, as if stepping into a pit of plastic balls that are popular play areas for kids.

“If Bennu was completely packed, that would imply nearly solid rock, but we found a lot of void space in the surface,” said Kevin Walsh, a member of the OSIRIS-REx science team from Southwest Research Institute, which is based in San Antonio.



The latest findings about Bennu’s surface were published on July 7 in a pair of papers in the journals Science and Science Advances, led respectively by Dante Lauretta, principal investigator of OSIRIS-REx, based at University of Arizona, Tucson, and Walsh. These results add to the intrigue that has kept scientists on the edge of their seats throughout the OSIRIS-REx mission, as Bennu has proved consistently unpredictable.
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www.nasa.gov

NASA Reveals Surface of Asteroid Bennu is Like Plastic Ball Pit

After analyzing data gathered when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected a sample from asteroid Bennu in October 2020, scientists have learned something astonishing.
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
 
NASA Begins Psyche Mission Review

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have commissioned an independent review to examine project and institutional issues that led to the Psyche mission missing its planned 2022 launch opportunity, and to review the mission’s path forward. The 15-member review board will be chaired by retired NASA official Tom Young and is slated to begin work on July 19. The review will study factors of workforce environment, culture, communication, schedule, and both technical and programmatic risks. Results of this study will help inform a continuation/ termination review for the mission, as well as provide NASA and JPL with actionable information to reduce risk for other missions. The board is expected to brief their findings to NASA and JPL leadership in late September.
 
I had completely missed the news that Psyche had missed its launch window, as announced on June 24. Drats. Hopefully they can take all the time needed to meticulously test it and launch it in 2023. IT has electric propulsion so it is a bit less dependant from rigid Hohmann launch windows. Although asteroids launch windows are quite irregular along the years...
 
Archibald said:
I had completely missed the news that Psyche had missed its launch window, as announced on June 24. Drats. Hopefully they can take all the time needed to meticulously test it and launch it in 2023. IT has electric propulsion so it is a bit less dependant from rigid Hohmann launch windows. Although asteroids launch windows are quite irregular along the years...
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All I will say from reading elsewhere is the idea that the mission will be terminated shouldn’t be taken off the table.
 
Lucy has discovered a moon around one of its target asteroids, the asteroid is called Polymele.

www.nasa.gov

NASA’s Lucy Team Discovers Moon Around Asteroid Polymele

After a surprise result from a long-running observation campaign, the Lucy mission can add one more asteroid to the list. On March 27, Lucy’s science team discovered that the smallest of the mission’s Trojan asteroid targets, Polymele, has a satellite of its own.
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1616810779566563328
View: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1616810779566563328


NASA quietly announced this week it's planning no further attempts to fully deploy a solar array on the Lucy spacecraft. Its current state "carries an acceptable level of risk and further deployment activities are unlikely to be beneficial at this time."
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NASA’s Lucy Mission Suspending Further Solar Array Deployment Activities – Lucy Mission

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov

NASA’s Lucy Mission Suspending Further Solar Array Deployment Activities

NASA’s Lucy mission team has decided to suspend further solar array deployment activities. The team determined that operating the mission with the solar array in the current unlatched state carries an acceptable level of risk and further deployment activities are unlikely to be beneficial at this time. The spacecraft continues to make progress along its planned trajectory.

Shortly after the spacecraft’s Oct. 2021 launch, the mission team realized that one of Lucy’s two solar arrays had not properly unfurled and latched. A series of activities in 2022 succeeded in further deploying the array, placing it into a tensioned, but unlatched, state. Using engineering models calibrated by spacecraft data, the team estimates that the solar array is over 98% deployed, and it is strong enough to withstand the stresses of Lucy’s 12-year mission. The team’s confidence in the stability of the solar array was affirmed by its behavior during the close flyby of the Earth on Oct. 16, 2022, when the spacecraft flew within 243 miles (392 km) of the Earth, through the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The solar array is producing the expected level of power at the present solar range and is expected to have enough capability to perform the baseline mission with margin.

The team elected to suspend deployment attempts after the attempt on Dec. 13, 2022, produced only small movement in the solar array. Ground-based testing indicated that the deployment attempts were most productive while the spacecraft was warmer, closer to the Sun. As the spacecraft is currently 123 million miles (197 million km) from the Sun (1.3 times farther from the Sun than the Earth) and moving away at 20,000 mph (35,000 km/hr), the team does not expect further deployment attempts to be beneficial under present conditions.

Due to the energy boost that the spacecraft received during last October’s Earth gravity assist, the spacecraft is now on an orbit which will take it over 315 million miles (500 million km) from the Sun before returning to Earth for a second Earth gravity assist on Dec. 12, 2024. Over the next year and a half, the team will continue to collect data on how the solar array behaves during flight. Most significantly, the team will observe how the array behaves during a maneuver in Feb. 2024, when the spacecraft operates its main engine for the first time. As the spacecraft warms up during its approach to Earth in the fall of 2024, the team will re-evaluate if additional steps to reduce risk will be needed.

Author Erin Morton
Posted on January 19, 2023
Categories Lucy Mission
Tags Lucy
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Flyaway said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1616810779566563328
View: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1616810779566563328


NASA quietly announced this week it's planning no further attempts to fully deploy a solar array on the Lucy spacecraft. Its current state "carries an acceptable level of risk and further deployment activities are unlikely to be beneficial at this time."
Click to expand...

NASA’s Lucy Mission Suspending Further Solar Array Deployment Activities – Lucy Mission

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov

NASA’s Lucy Mission Suspending Further Solar Array Deployment Activities

NASA’s Lucy mission team has decided to suspend further solar array deployment activities. The team determined that operating the mission with the solar array in the current unlatched state carries an acceptable level of risk and further deployment activities are unlikely to be beneficial at this time. The spacecraft continues to make progress along its planned trajectory.

Shortly after the spacecraft’s Oct. 2021 launch, the mission team realized that one of Lucy’s two solar arrays had not properly unfurled and latched. A series of activities in 2022 succeeded in further deploying the array, placing it into a tensioned, but unlatched, state. Using engineering models calibrated by spacecraft data, the team estimates that the solar array is over 98% deployed, and it is strong enough to withstand the stresses of Lucy’s 12-year mission. The team’s confidence in the stability of the solar array was affirmed by its behavior during the close flyby of the Earth on Oct. 16, 2022, when the spacecraft flew within 243 miles (392 km) of the Earth, through the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The solar array is producing the expected level of power at the present solar range and is expected to have enough capability to perform the baseline mission with margin.

The team elected to suspend deployment attempts after the attempt on Dec. 13, 2022, produced only small movement in the solar array. Ground-based testing indicated that the deployment attempts were most productive while the spacecraft was warmer, closer to the Sun. As the spacecraft is currently 123 million miles (197 million km) from the Sun (1.3 times farther from the Sun than the Earth) and moving away at 20,000 mph (35,000 km/hr), the team does not expect further deployment attempts to be beneficial under present conditions.

Due to the energy boost that the spacecraft received during last October’s Earth gravity assist, the spacecraft is now on an orbit which will take it over 315 million miles (500 million km) from the Sun before returning to Earth for a second Earth gravity assist on Dec. 12, 2024. Over the next year and a half, the team will continue to collect data on how the solar array behaves during flight. Most significantly, the team will observe how the array behaves during a maneuver in Feb. 2024, when the spacecraft operates its main engine for the first time. As the spacecraft warms up during its approach to Earth in the fall of 2024, the team will re-evaluate if additional steps to reduce risk will be needed.

Author Erin Morton
Posted on January 19, 2023
Categories Lucy Mission
Tags Lucy
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Poor Lucy, not good news at all. :(
 
To summarize that report:
- the solar array is not fully deployed, but produces about 98% of rated power.
- the position it's in seems to be stable enough to allow the mission to be completed normally.
 
NASA’s Lucy Mission Snaps its First Views of Trojan Asteroid Targets

www.nasa.gov

NASA’s Lucy Mission Snaps its First Views of Trojan Asteroid Targets

Some of the asteroids NASA’s Lucy mission will visit are still more than 330 million miles away from the spacecraft — over three times the average distance between Earth and the Sun — but despite the great distance and the comparatively small sizes, Lucy caught views of four of its targets in...
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
 
Good news for Lucy, cannot wait to see what happens when Lucy gets to the Trojan Asteroids.
 
Great, I cannot wait to see the images from Lucy. Going to be along wait though.
 
www.space.com

Queen legend Brian May helped NASA ace its asteroid-sampling mission, new book reveals

Asteroid Bennu proved a trickster for NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid explorer, rewriting everything scientists had thought about space rocks.
www.space.com www.space.com

Queen legend Brian May helped NASA ace its asteroid-sampling mission, new book reveals
By Tereza Pultarova published 1 day ago

Asteroid Bennu proved a trickster for NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid explorer, rewriting everything scientists had thought about space rocks.

Queen guitarist Brian May and Dante Lauretta, the chief scientist of NASA's asteroid-sampling OSIRIS-REx mission, have collaborated on a book about the asteroid Bennu — and it's not a PR stunt.
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Thanks for the early warning Flyaway. Sunday cannot come fast enough, I wish that the recovery goes well and that the sample is returned safely to Earth.
 
Well, it appears that the sample return capsule has landed, from TheSpaceBucket:


Earlier this morning after 7 years of traveling space, NASA returned its first asteroid samples back to Earth. Back in 2016, NASA launched its first ever asteroid sample return spacecraft. Years later in 2021 it made contact with an asteroid Bennu, collecting rock and starting its journey back to Earth. Finally, after all that time the sample successfully landed on Earth after reentering the atmosphere. Now the agency will take a closer look at these one of a kind samples to determine a host of new information.
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This marks the first U.S. mission to deliver a sample of an asteroid to Earth. The samples are expected to help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, as well as improve our understanding of asteroids that could impact Earth. When the spacecraft first made contact, it actually grabbed more rocks and dust than expected.
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Either way, it’s now heading to various labs to be tested and inform future decisions. Here I will go more in-depth into the landing this morning, why it’s so significant, the long journey of this mission, and more.
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Full article here - https://thespacebucket.com/nasa-just-...
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The Science Museum in London is gettting a sample, or at least that is what I have heard from the BBC last night.
 

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