Le vaisseau spatial Psyche de la NASA commence son traitement au Centre spatial Kennedy.

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Le vaisseau spatial Psyche de la NASA commence son traitement au Centre spatial Kennedy.
Vaisseau spatial Psyche

Ce concept d’artiste représente le vaisseau spatial Psyche de la NASA dans l’espace. Crédit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Le vaisseau orbiteur, qui se dirige vers l’astéroïde du même nom, effectue les derniers préparatifs en vue de son lancement en août.

Depuis son arrivée le 29 avril, l’engin spatial Psyche s’est installé dans l’installation d’entretien des charges utiles dangereuses à ;” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{” attribute=””>NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where technicians removed it from its protective shipping container, rotated it to vertical, and have begun the final steps to prepare the spacecraft for launch.

Over the next few months, crews will perform a range of work including reinstalling solar arrays, reintegrating a radio, testing the telecommunications system, loading propellants, and encapsulating the spacecraft inside payload fairings before it leaves the facility and moves to the launch pad.

Psyche Spacecraft in Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility

The Psyche spacecraft sits in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after traveling across the country from a clean room at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Credit: NASA/Isaac Watson

The Psyche spacecraft will explore a metal-rich asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, that is believed to be composed mostly of nickel-iron metal. The mission is targeting an August 1, 2022, launch atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. After arriving in 2026, the spacecraft will spend 21 months orbiting its namesake asteroid, mapping and gathering data, potentially providing insights on how planets with a metal core, including Earth, formed.


Rejoignez le voyage alors que Psyche de la NASA sera lancé en 2022 pour explorer un astéroïde unique riche en métaux du même nom, qui est en orbite autour du soleil entre Mars et Jupiter. Crédit : NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

More About the Mission

Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar is providing the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis. Psyche was selected in 2017 as the 14th mission under NASA’s Discovery Program.

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