NASA’s mission to the metal kingdoms asteroid 16 Psyche has started its ion engines and is now sailing over the solar system under the power of solar-electric propulsion.
The launch of the spacecraft, which is also called Psycheon October 13, 2023, it provided enough initial momentum to carry it through more than 300 million kilometers of space, which is beyond the orbit of Mars.
Now, however, the built-in ion engines have taken over the task of acceleration. They work by converting sunlight into electricity through the spacecraft’s solar panels that form its ‘wings’. The resulting electric current drives an electromagnetic field that accelerates and expels ions, which are charged particles, of xenon gas. As the ions from the four thrusters accelerate, creating an eerie blue glow, they boost the spacecraft and push it in the opposite direction.
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The force exerted by ejected ions is small; each thruster provides a pressure equal to three coins pressed into your hand by the force of your hand gravity. However, without atmospheric friction roomThis gentle thrust can build up and accumulate quickly to accelerate the spacecraft faster and faster. Psyche is currently racing through space at a speed of 135,000 kilometers per hour, and the aim is to increase this to 200,000 kilometers per hour.
The spacecraft’s ion engines are currently firing and powering almost constantly, but as part of Psyche’s journey to its namesake asteroid it will orbit and encounter Mars in May 2026. When approaching the Red Planet, Psyche will disable its ion engines. and gets himself caught in Mars’ gravity and slingshotted around the planet.
After this gravity assist, the ion engines will restart and the spacecraft’s next stop will be the asteroid 16 Psyche in 2029, where it will remain in orbit for at least two years. The asteroid 16 Psyche is of interest to scientists because it is a large, 280-kilometer-wide fragment of the metallic core of an ancient planet, which remains after the period of planet formation in our Solar System, about 4.5 billion people. years ago. By learning more about 16 Psyche, planetary scientists hope to discover more about the inside of rocky planets like it Soilas well as how these worlds came into being.
The Psyche spacecraft did not sit idle during its journey. It has spent its time time using different instruments to collect scientific data. For example the magnetometer and the Gamma ray and neutron spectrometer have detected charged particles emitted by coronal mass ejections by the sun. Meanwhile, the spacecraft is also testing a new optical communications technology in space, based on using lasers instead of radio to transmit data over interplanetary distances. A test of the system in April exceeded expectations by returning data at a rate of 267 megabits per second from a distance of 226 million kilometers (140 million miles). This bit rate is comparable to broadband download speeds at home.
“So far we have powered up and checked the various devices needed to complete the mission, and we can report that they are working extremely well,” said Henry Stone, Psyche project manager at NASA. Jet propulsion laboratoryin a rack.
Psyche is not the first mission to the asteroid belt use ion engines. For the, NASA‘S Dawn mission visited both Ceres And Vesta under the accelerator of solar-electric propulsion. In Star Wars, the name of the Empire’s TIE fighters stands for Twin Ion Engine, but as Dawn, and now Psyche, demonstrate, such technology is no longer science fiction.