NASA mission to the metal rich asteroid 16 Psyche has fired up its ion engines and is now sailing through it solar system under the power of solar-electric propulsion.
of Start of the spaceship, which is also called Physiqueon October 13, 2023 gave it an initial boost sufficient to propel it more than 190 million miles (300 million kilometers) into space, which is beyond the orbit of March.
Now, however, its onboard ion engines have taken over the job of acceleration. They work by converting sunlight into electricity via the spacecraft’s solar arrays that form its “wings.” The resulting electric current powers an electromagnetic field that accelerates and expels the ions, which are charged particles, of the xenon gas. As the ions are accelerated by the four thrusters, creating an eerie blue glow, they impart momentum to the spacecraft, pushing it in the opposite direction.
Connected: Laser on NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe transmits data from 140 million miles away
The force exerted by the ejected ions is small; each pusher provides a pressure equal to three coins being pressed into your hand due to the force of gravity. However, no atmospheric friction inside ROOM, this gentle thrust can build up, quickly building up to accelerate the spacecraft at ever-higher rates. Psyche is currently hurtling through space at 84,000 miles (135,000 kilometers) per hour, and the goal is to get it up to 124,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) per hour.
The ship’s ion engines are currently firing almost constantly and are propelling it forward, but as part of Psyche’s journey to its namesake asteroid, it will orbit and rendezvous with Mars in May 2026. As the approach of On the Red Planet, Psyche will shut down its ion engines and allow itself to be captured by Martian gravity and slingshot around the planet.
After this gravity assist, the ion engines will be back on and the spacecraft’s next stop will be asteroid 16 Psyche in 2029, around which it will orbit for at least two years. Asteroid 16 Psyche is of interest to scientists because it is a large, 173-mile-wide (280-kilometer-wide) fragment of the metallic core of an ancient planet left over from the planet-forming period of our solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago. Years ago. By learning about 16 Psyche, planetary scientists hope to discover more about its interior rocky planets HOW earthand how these worlds were formed.
Throughout its journey, the Psyche spacecraft has not been idle. He spent it time using various instruments to collect scientific data. For example, his magnetometer as well as his gamma rays and the neutron spectrometer have detected charged particles emitted by coronal mass ejections BY SUN. Meanwhile, the spacecraft is also testing a new deep-space optical communication technology based on the use of lasers, rather than radio, to transmit data across interplanetary distances. A test of the system in April exceeded expectations by transmitting data at 267 megabits per second from a distance of 226 million kilometers (140 million miles). This bit rate is comparable to your home broadband download speed.
“Up to this point, we have turned on and checked the various pieces of equipment needed to complete the mission and can report that they are working beautifully,” said Henry Stone, who is NASA’s Psyche project manager. Jet Propulsion Laboratoryin one STATEMENT.
Psychic is not the first mission in the asteroid belt to use ion engines. Before her, NASAS ‘ The Dawn Mission visited both Ceres AND Vesta under the throttle 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, shows, such technology is no longer science fiction.
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Image Source : www.space.com