Psyche: Journey to a Metal World Overview, Launch, and Early Data

Brad Zavodsky (Psyche Program Mission Manager)

Planetary Missions Program Office, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA’s Psyche Mission launched on October 13, 2023, targeting an asteroid of the same name.  The Psyche asteroid is a unique planetary object as it is the largest metal asteroid in the Solar System.  The goal of the Psyche Mission is to explore this new type of world, an iron core, to understand a previously unexplored building block of planet formation and provide a look inside other terrestrial planets, including Earth.  The Psyche Mission consists of a robotic spacecraft designed to transverse the inner Solar System, enter orbit around the metal asteroid Psyche, and collect observations from a suite of three instruments that address the mission objectives.  This presentation will provide an overview of the Psyche spacecraft, instruments, and the mission objectives.  It will also share the excitement of Psyche’s launch and early data captured by the mission’s scientific instruments during initial check out.