Psyche Spacecraft Unwrapped

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft undergoes processing and servicing ahead of launch atop a work stand inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 3, 2022.
Psyche is targeting to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Aug. 1, 2022. The spacecraft will use solar-electric propulsion to travel approximately 1.5 billion miles to rendezvous with its namesake asteroid in 2026. The Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and testing, and mission operations. Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis. NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP), based at Kennedy, is managing the launch. Psyche will be the 14th mission in the agency’s Discovery program and LSP’s 100th primary mission.

NASA ID: KSC-20220503-PH-ILW01_0067 Photographer: NASA/Isaac Watson Larger image