23.11.2023
NASA's Psyche spacecraft just fired a laser 10 million miles away in deep space
Fast communications could speed up science on the asteroid mission.
A NASA laser just fired successfully in a deep-space test.
On Nov. 14, NASA picked up a laser signal fired from an instrument that launched with the Psyche spacecraft, which is currently more than 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) from Earth and heading toward a mysterious metal asteroid. (The spacecraft is at more than 40 times the average distance of Earth's moon, and still voyaging afar.)
The moment marked the first successful test of NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, a next-generation comms link that sends information not by radio waves but instead by laser light. It's part of a series of tests NASA is doing to speed up communications in deep space, on different missions.
"Achieving first light is a tremendous achievement. The ground systems successfully detected the deep space laser photons from DSOC," Abi Biswas, the system's project technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, said in an agency statement.
"And we were also able to send some data, meaning we were able to exchange 'bits of light' from and to deep space," Biswas added.
Other missions have tried out laser comms in Earth orbit or on the way to the moon and back, but DSOC gives laser communications its trickiest, most distant test yet. If it's successful, NASA officials expect that astronauts of the coming decades, bound for the moon or for Mars, may use laser light as their means of taking with ground control.
This DSOC test began in California, at JPL's Table Mountain Facility. There, in the hills outside Los Angeles, engineers switched on an uplink beacon, a near-infrared laser pointed in Psyche's direction. About 50 seconds later, a transceiver on Psyche received the laser and relayed its own laser signal back to Palomar Observatory, near San Diego.
The task requires astronomical precision, and automated guidance systems help aim Psyche's own laser. But should the test work out, the benefits are high: Because laser light has shorter wavelengths than radio waves, using optical light would allow space missions to send 10 to 100 times more information per unit time than they currently do.
The Nov. 14 test marked "first light" for DSOC, and engineers will continue to test the system as Psyche voyages to its namesake asteroid, which resides in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Psyche should get there in 2029, then spend 29 months surveying the bizarre metallic world.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 29.11.2023
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Psyche beam hits Earth from 16 million km away
NASA’s Psyche spaceship has fired a laser beam at Earth from 16 million kilometres away.
Contained within that laser is data and it marks the first ‘test fire’ of NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) instrumentation, which was installed on the Psyche spacecraft for the six-year mission to its namesake US$1 quintillion asteroid.
As part of the experiment, DSOC sent a near-infrared light beam containing test data to Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego, California.
The process, dubbed ‘first light’, is one of several milestones NASA hopes to meet during the course of the Psyche mission. Two weeks ago, DSOC also transmitted data from near the Moon.
DSOC will continue transmitting laser-borne data to NASA over the next two years as part of the special technology demonstration. Success will likely see technology incorporated into future spacefaring missions for deep-space communication. The use of near-infrared lasers allows more data to be packed into light beams, enabling 10-100 times as much data to be transmitted than conventional radio waves.
An upcoming test will see the instrument stream video of Mars back to Earth as the Psyche spaceship drifts past the red planet.
“Achieving first light is one of many critical DSOC milestones in the coming months, paving the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars,” said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
As part of the DSOC experiment, test data was sent using uplink lasers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab facility in Wrightwood, California, and downlink lasers mounted to the instrument itself. The Wrightwood uplink laser provides a ‘beacon’ for the DSOC to find and target its downlink back to Earth.
Following the successful first test, the DSOC mission control will begin refining the downlink targeting systems for future experiments. Given changes in position as the spacecraft draws further away from the Earth, precision tracking is required, with data taking about 20 minutes to reach the Earth from its current position.
“Tuesday morning’s test was the first to fully incorporate the ground assets and flight transceiver, requiring the DSOC and Psyche operations teams to work in tandem,” said Meera Srinivasan, operations lead for DSOC at JPL. “It was a formidable challenge, and we have a lot more work to do, but for a short time, we were able to transmit, receive, and decode some data.”
While mounted on a Psyche spacecraft, DSOC is a separate mission to NASA’s asteroid explorer. Psyche is still ‘booting up’ as it travels towards its target, an asteroid believed to be the metallic remnants of a dead planet core.
Quelle: COSMOS
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Update: 7.12.2023
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NASA’s Psyche Delivers First Images and Other Data
The mission team has celebrated several successes since its launch from Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 13. The latest is the operation of the spacecraft’s cameras.
This mosaic of a star field in the constellation Pisces was made from “first light” images acquired Dec. 4 by both of the cameras on NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. Use the slider to view the star field with and without star names labeled. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is on a roll. In the eight weeks since it left Earth on Oct. 13, the orbiter has performed one successful operation after another, powering on scientific instruments, streaming data toward home, and setting a deep-space record with its electric thrusters. The latest achievement: On Monday, Dec. 4, the mission turned on Psyche’s twin cameras and retrieved the first images – a milestone called “first light.”
Already 16 million miles (26 million kilometers) from Earth, the spacecraft will arrive at its destination – the asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter – in 2029. The team wanted to test all of the science instruments early in the long journey to make sure they are working as intended, and to ensure there would be plenty of time to calibrate and adjust them as needed.
The imager instrument, which consists of a pair of identical cameras, captured a total of 68 images, all within a star field in the constellation Pisces. The imager team is using the data to verify proper commanding, telemetry analysis, and calibration of the images.
“These initial images are only a curtain-opener,” said Arizona State University’s Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead. “For the team that designed and operates this sophisticated instrument, first light is a thrill. We start checking out the cameras with star images like these, then in 2026 we’ll take test images of Mars during the spacecraft’s flyby. And finally, in 2029 we’ll get our most exciting images yet – of our target asteroid Psyche. We look forward to sharing all of these visuals with the public.”
The imager takes pictures through multiple color filters, all of which were tested in these initial observations. With the filters, the team will use photographs in wavelengths of light both visible and invisible to the human eye to help determine the composition of the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The imager team will also use the data to create 3D maps of the asteroid to better understand its geology, which will give clues about Psyche’s history.
Solar Surprise
Earlier in the mission, in late October, the team powered on the magnetometer, which will provide crucial data to help determine how the asteroid formed. Evidence that the asteroid once had a magnetic field would be a strong indication that the body is a partial core of a planetesimal, a building block of an early planet. The information could help us better understand how our own planet formed.
Shortly after being powered on, the magnetometer gave scientists an unexpected gift: It detected a solar eruption, a common occurrence called a coronal mass ejection, where the Sun expels large quantities of magnetized plasma. Since then, the team has seen several of these events and will continue to monitor space weather as the spacecraft travels to the asteroid.
The good news is twofold. Data collected so far confirms that the magnetometer can precisely detect very small magnetic fields. It also confirms that the spacecraft is magnetically “quiet.” The electrical currents powering a probe of this size and complexity have the potential to generate magnetic fields that could interfere with science detections. Because Earth has its own powerful magnetic field, scientists obtained a much better measurement of the spacecraft magnetic field once it was in space.
In the Zone
On Nov. 8, amid all the work with the science instruments, the team fired up two of the four electric propulsion thrusters, setting a record: the first-ever use of Hall-effect thrusters in deep space. Until now, they’d been used only on spacecraft going as far as lunar orbit. By expelling charged atoms, or ions, of xenon gas, the ultra-efficient thrusters will propel the spacecraft to the asteroid (a 2.2-billion-mile, or 3.6-billion-kilometer journey) and help it maneuver in orbit.
Less than a week later, on Nov. 14, the technology demonstration built into the spacecraft, an experiment called Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC), set its own record. DSOC achieved first light by sending and receiving optical data from far beyond the Moon. The instrument beamed a near-infrared laser encoded with test data from nearly 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) away – the farthest-ever demonstration of optical communications.
The Psyche team has also successfully powered on the gamma-ray detecting component of its third science instrument, the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer. Next, the instrument’s neutron-detecting sensors will be turned on the week of Dec. 11. Together those capabilities will help the team determine the chemical elements that make up the asteroid’s surface material.
The data was collected as part of a highly orchestrated set of activities that have been carefully planned and rehearsed over the past three years. "Our commissioning activities succeeded beyond our expectations, and this success lays the groundwork for future operations during cruise and at asteroid Psyche," said Peplowski, the Psyche GRNS instrument scientist from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Peplowski led the development of the GRS commissioning activities, in close collaboration with the Psyche science operations team at JPL.
To the untrained eye, the collection of squiggly lines means virtually nothing, but to the multi-institutional team of physicists who spent nine years developing the instrument, those lines are a herald of exciting things to come - for both Psyche and future NASA missions.
"[The data] are showing us that we have a really high-performance instrument, and will allow us to refine calculations about how sensitive we'll be when we get to Psyche," said Lawrence, the Psyche GRS investigation lead, from APL.
Built by APL in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and with significant contributions from Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (ATC), Psyche's GRS will play an important role in the mission's goal to determine whether Psyche - an asteroid 150 miles (240 kilometers) wide - is the fragment of an early planetesimal, or a building block of a planet.
The highlight of the commission measurements, and the key to determining Psyche's composition, are the gamma-ray spectra from the GRS. Like chemical fingerprints, gamma rays released by the interaction of cosmic particles with a planetary surface reveal the elemental composition of that object. Consequently, gamma rays can provide the chemical clues needed to confirm that asteroid Psyche is indeed the metallic remnant of a planetary core from the early solar system.
The Psyche GRS team has built gamma-ray instruments for numerous space missions, including NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission, which made the first orbital and landed measurements of an asteroid, and NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury, both led by APL.
Psyche's GRS incorporates lessons learned from those instruments to advance the state of the art for planetary gamma-ray instrumentation. It employs a new type of cryocooler, developed by Lockheed Martin, to cool the instrument's pure germanium-crystal "heart" to a chilly minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 180 degrees Celsius). "That change should allow the instrument to last significantly longer than its predecessors," Lawrence said.
"It's the highest-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer that has ever flown in space," said Burks, a physicist at LLNL who helped design and build the gamma-ray sensor at the heart of the Psyche GRS. "The data returned already indicate it will have over twice the resolution of our prior MESSENGER instrument, which shows it will have unparalleled sensitivity for measuring the elemental composition of Psyche."
Those auspicious indications bode well not only for what's to come when Psyche reaches its destination in 2029 but also for the coming decades of space exploration. Two upcoming missions will host similar APL-developed GRS instruments, including the MEGANE instrument on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Martian Moons eXploration mission, and NASA's APL-led Dragonfly mission to Saturn's largest moon Titan. The Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE) instrument on NASA's Europa Clipper mission uses the same type of cryocooler as the Psyche mission.
After a two-week process of testing the instrument's performance, the team turned the gamma-ray sensor off on Nov. 27. Other portions of the GRS, including a sensor that measures neutrons and protons, remain on. The team is scheduled to turn on the other half of the GRNS - the neutron spectrometer - in mid-December. "Once the neutron spectrometer is commissioned, we'll transition to collecting valuable measurements of the space environment throughout our roughly 5.5-year-long cruise from Earth to our destination in the asteroid belt," Peplowski noted.
Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is responsible for the mission's overall management and mission operations. APL, LLNL, Lockheed Martin ATC, the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mirion Technologies, Inc., were significant partners in development of the Psyche GRS.
Quelle: SD
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Update: 24.05.2024
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NASA’s Psyche Fires Up Its Sci-Fi-Worthy Thrusters
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft headed to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft launched in October 2023 and will arrive at its destination in 2029.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
The spacecraft already is beyond the distance of Mars and is using ion propulsion to accelerate toward a metal-rich asteroid, where it will orbit and collect science data.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and there’s no holding back now. Navigators are firing its futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which emit a blue glow, nearly nonstop as the orbiter zips farther into deep space.
The spacecraft launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on Oct. 13, 2023. After leaving our atmosphere, Psyche made the most of its rocket boost and coasted beyond the orbit of Mars.
This photo captures an operating electric thruster identical to those being used to propel NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The blue glow comes from the charged atoms, or ions, of xenon.
For the next year, the spacecraft will be in what mission planners call “full cruise” mode, when its electric thrusters take over and propel the orbiter toward the asteroid belt. The thrusters work by expelling charged atoms, or ions, of xenon, emitting a brilliant blue glow that trails behind the spacecraft.
They are part of Psyche’s incredibly efficient solar electric propulsion system, which is powered by sunlight. The thrust created by the ionized xenon is gentle, but it does the job. Even in full cruise mode, the pressure exerted by the thrusters is about what you’d feel holding three quarters in your hand.
The orbiter is now more than 190 million miles (300 million kilometers) away and moving at a clip of 23 miles per second (37 kilometers per second), relative to Earth. That’s about 84,000 mph (135,000 kph). Over time, with no atmospheric drag to slow it down, Psyche will accelerate to speeds of up to 124,000 mph (200,000 kph).
The spacecraft will arrive at the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in 2029 and will make observations from orbit for about two years. The data it collects will help scientists better understand the formation of rocky planets with metallic cores, including Earth. Scientists have evidence that the asteroid, which is about 173 miles (280 kilometers) across at its widest point, may be the partial core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early planet.
Clean Bill of Health
The flight team used Psyche’s first 100 days in space to conduct a full checkout of all spacecraft systems. All of the engineering systems are working just as expected, and the three science instruments have been operating without a hitch. The magnetometer is working so well that it was able to detect an eruption of charged particles from the Sun, as did the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer. And this past December, the twin cameras on the imaging instrument captured their first images.
This graphic depicts the path NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is following as it travels to the asteroid Psyche. The key milestones of the prime mission are labeled, including the Mars gravity assist in May 2026.
“Until this point, we have been powering on and checking out the various pieces of equipment needed to complete the mission, and we can report they are working beautifully,” said Henry Stone, Psyche project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “Now we are on our way and looking forward to an upcoming close flyby of Mars.”
That’s because the spacecraft’s trajectory will bring it back toward the Red Planet in the spring of 2026. The spacecraft will power down the thrusters as it coasts toward Mars, using the planet’s gravity to slingshot itself out. From there, the thrusters return to full cruise mode. Next stop: the asteroid Psyche.
JWST spots hydration on metal asteroid Psyche
Artist impression of an object crashing into an asteroid, hydrating it, next to the JWST. Credit: Southwest Research Institute.
Researchers analysing data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have found evidence that an object in the asteroid belt is “hydrated”.
This doesn’t mean that the asteroid has reached its daily fluid intake goals. The finding refers to the presence of hydroxyl molecules (an oxygen atom bound to a hydrogen atom) on the surface of the asteroid named Psyche.
Psyche is about 222 kilometres in diameter and orbits the Sun along with millions of other objects in the Main Asteroid Belt which sits between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was first observed by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis in 1852.
It is largely metallic, leading to its designation as an M-class asteroid. Psyche could be the leftover core of a planet which experienced a catastrophic collision and never reached planetary maturity.
In October 2023, NASA launched the Psyche spacecraft which is traveling to the asteroid. The spacecraft’s 3.5-billion-km journey is due to see it arrive at the asteroid in August 2029.
Hydrated minerals present on the asteroid suggests a complex history for Psyche and will aid the NASA spacecraft’s mission to understand this object.
Understanding interesting asteroids like Psyche could help us understand the origins of the solar system and even life on our planet.
“Our understanding of solar system evolution is closely tied to interpretations of asteroid composition, particularly the M-class asteroids that contain higher concentrations of metal,” says Stephanie Jarmak from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in the US.
Jarmak is lead author of a paper published on the research into Psyche which is published in the Planetary Science Journal. She completed much of the research as part of the Texas-based Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).
The fact that hydroxyl, and potentially water, are present on the asteroid’s surface raises a question: was Psyche hydrated by impacts from external bodes, or is the hydration native to the asteroid (endogenous)?
If the hydration is not the result of external impacts, then it could suggest that Psyche has a different evolutionary history than current asteroid formation models.
“Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula,” says co-author Anicia Arredondo from the SwRI. “Hydration that is endogenous could suggest that Psyche is not the remnant core of a protoplanet.”
The JWST data shows that hydration is not even across Psyche’s surface which could point to the presence of hydroxyl molecules due to impacts by highly hydrated asteroids.
Quelle: COSMOS