NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has launched towards a metal-rich asteroid of the same name. The probe took off on Friday from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida aboard a ‘Falcon Heavy’ rocket from Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX. The start was previously postponed a day due to bad weather. Austrian technology was used during transport.
The probe, which is about the size of a tennis court with solar sails spread out, was originally scheduled to launch in 2022. But that didn’t work due to computer problems. ‘Psyche’ has to travel about 3.5 billion kilometers to reach the asteroid. Therefore, the probe cannot reach there until 2029 at the earliest.
Asteroid probably contains many metals
The asteroid “Psyche” orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. It has an area of 165,800 square kilometers, which is almost half the size of Germany. According to the first findings, “Psyche” contains many metals. The probe will examine its composition, giving scientists a better understanding of the formation of asteroids, planets and our solar system.
NASA is currently doing a lot of research into asteroids: with the ‘Dart’ mission, the US space agency had a probe impact on an asteroid last year – thus changing its orbit. The ‘Osiris-Rex’ mission sent a probe to the asteroid Bennu, which dropped a sample of debris on Earth a few weeks ago. According to initial studies, this contains traces of water and carbon. The probe is now on its way to the next asteroid: Apophis.
Austrian technology was also used
Austrian technology was used to transport the satellite from the production facility in Pasadena, California, in the western United States, to the spaceport on the east coast: it was transported in a high-tech container from Austrian space supplier Beyond Gravity Austria ( formerly RUAG Space), the company announced on Thursday.
The satellite container functions “as a mobile cleanroom with high-quality damping and air conditioning technology and high purity,” said Wolfgang Pawlinetz, head of the thermal and mechanisms department at Beyond Gravity, according to the release. Beyond Gravity’s reusable satellite container will also be used for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, expected to launch in 2024.
Source: Krone
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