For lack of being able to test all the systems of the mission in time, NASA had to resolve to postpone take-off by several months to 2023. This is enough to maximize the chances of success, even if the encounter with the large asteroid Psyche is less optimal, and will only take place in 2029 instead of 2026.
Sometimes it just takes a little…
Delayed due to lack of testing
The Psyche probe, transferred in the spring to the Kennedy Space Center for its preparation before takeoff on a Falcon Heavy rocket, had only until October 11 to be ready. Beyond that, the firing window closes, and the asteroid Psyche is no longer on the “good side” of the Solar System for the planned encounter with the robotic vehicle.
Unfortunately, NASA teams were unable to solve in time the compatibility problem discovered in May between the space probe and its test equipment on the ground and in the clean room, designed to simulate different situations with the probe in configuration of flight. The American agency explains in its press release that the responsible industrialist (Maxar) and the large JPL laboratory (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California) have gone into overdrive and that everything is settled today… but that there is no no longer has time to carry out all the tests scheduled for take-off in 2022.
Psyche, it will be for next year
Thus, it is not strictly speaking a problem with the Psyche probe, but a lack of time to complete the tests. It would of course be possible to carry out a reduced program to respect the firing window, but the scientific interest of the mission (and the criticality of these tests which concern the flight program and the orientation of the probe) dictated a postponement see you next year.
Not without some gnashing of teeth: some of the teams were happy to have succeeded in assembling the probe in difficult conditions linked to COVID-19 last year. Whatever, then, the decision is made, and Psyche will take off in 2023.
And for three more years…
In addition to this flight postponement (and therefore the possibility of seeing an additional takeoff of the powerful Falcon Heavy), the takeoff in 2023 will have two main consequences.
The first concerns the costs, because it is necessary to cover the storage of the probe, the longer duration of the tests, the immobilization of the launcher and the preparation of the teams before, but also and above all during the mission. Psyche should therefore cost NASA a total of 985 million dollars (and this, for its entire life cycle). A big overrun compared to his selection in 2017 and the estimated 500 million on file.
The other consequence is related to orbital dynamics. Unfortunately, Psyche will not be in the same place relative to Earth in 2023 as in 2022. The travel time is considerably longer, predicting an arrival near the metallic asteroid in 2029. And again, the specialists of mission congratulate themselves on having chosen a flexible and efficient electric-ionic propulsion, otherwise take-off and arrival would have been postponed by several additional years.
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Source : NASA
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