Archive
11/14/2022 – Ephemeris – Psyche spacecraft to launch to its namesake asteroid next October after a 14-month delay
/
This is Ephemeris for Monday, November 14th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 37 minutes, setting at 5:15, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:39. The Moon, 2 days before last quarter, will rise at 10:07 this evening.
The launch of the Psyche spacecraft to the asteroid of the same name this past August was canceled due to problems with the spacecraft itself, not the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. NASA thinks they have a handle on the problem and are now wanting to launch in October of next year. If they launched this year, they could have gotten a gravity assist by passing close to Mars on their way to the asteroid belt, where the asteroid Psyche resides. Next year’s launch will not have a Mars flyby and take 2 more years to reach Psyche, a total of 6 years, arriving in 2029. The long flight time is because of the attempt to orbit Psyche rather than just flying by the asteroid. To handle such a maneuver, the spacecraft will also use ion thrusters like the Dawn spacecraft did last decade, which orbited both the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. Psyche is a special metal rich asteroid that may have been the core of a protoplanet.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
An artist’s rendition of the Psyche spacecraft at the asteroid Psyche. Credit: NASA.
09/06/2022 – Ephemeris – Ongoing NASA Missions
This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, September 6th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 59 minutes, setting at 8:10, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:12. The Moon, 3 days past first quarter, will set at 3:11 tomorrow morning.
The Artemis I launch has been postponed until later this month. The next try will come no sooner than the 25th, or next month. Another launch that is delayed is the Psyche mission to the asteroid Psyche that was supposed to be launched last month on a Falcon Heavy rocket. The problem this time isn’t the rocket, but the satellite. There is a delay with delivery and testing of the software for the satellite. The launch this year would have used a Mars flyby for a gravitational assist to shorten the flight time. A launch next year would not have that advantage and would increase the flight time. On the 26th of this month the DART satellite will impact the tiny asteroid Dimorphos, that’s orbiting a larger asteroid Didymos, to test that method of planetary defense.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Artemis I availability dates for September and October 2022. As I understand it, launches on red dates would cause the Orion capsule to be in the Earth’s shadow for longer than 90 minutes. Gray dates would have the Orion Capsule land at night. Credit NASA. A cut & paste from Artemis I Mission Availability 2022-2023 (EST/EDT) pdf.
An artist’s rendition of the Psyche spacecraft at the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. Credit: NASA.
Schematic of the DART mission shows the impact on the moonlet of asteroid (65803) Didymos. Post-impact observations from Earth-based optical telescopes and planetary radar would, in turn, measure the change in the moonlet’s orbit about the parent body.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.
02/17/2022 – Ephemeris – Mission to a metallic asteroid
This is Ephemeris for Thursday, February 17th. Today the Sun will be up for 10 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 6:14, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:38. The Moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 7:21 this evening.
In August this year, one of the three scheduled Falcon-Heavy rocket launches this year will send the Psyche spacecraft on a four-year journey to its namesake asteroid, 16 Psyche. It is an unusual asteroid, thought to be 30 to 60 percent iron-nickel in composition. The spacecraft will swing by Mars for a gravitational boost. After the chemical powered boost into solar orbit, the spacecraft will open its huge solar panels in the shape of two crosses to feed its power hungry electric thrusters to complete the journey and to orbit 16 Psyche. The thrusters are Hall Effect thrusters, the first used in space, that use magnetic fields instead of electric fields to eject xenon gas ions to provide thrust. It is expected to arrive at 16 Psyche in 2026.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Artist’s visualization of the spacecraft Psyche orbiting asteroid 16 Psyche. This imagining seems to assume the asteroid is nearly 100% metallic. Credit: NASA.
12/30/2021 – Ephemeris – Looking forward to some space events in 2022
This is Ephemeris for Thursday, December 30th. Today the Sun will be up for 8 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 5:11, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:20. The Moon, 2 days before new, will rise at 6 tomorrow morning.
If you thought 2021 was an active one in space, 2022 looks to be as exciting. The James Webb Space Telescope will continue to deploy itself as it journeys to reach it’s L2 halo orbit. It should become operational by mid-year. The launch of the uncrewed Artemis-1 mission to, and around the Moon, has been pushed back a month to no earlier than March 12th, because of having to swap out a control computer for one of its main engines. The launch of the Psyche probe to the mostly metallic asteroid of the same name will occur in August by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on a four-year journey to orbit this unique asteroid. And NASA’s DART spacecraft is scheduled to crash into the tiny Dimorphos asteroid to test a deflection method in late September.
The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). They may be different for your location.
Addendum
James Webb Space Telescope trajectory to L2 with some milestones of deployment. “ISIM” stands for Integrated Scientific Instruments Module. Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).
Artemis-1 orbital plan. Click on the image to enlarge it. Credit NASA.
Psyche spacecraft at the asteroid Psyche. Credit: NASA.
Schematic of the DART mission shows the impact on the moonlet of asteroid (65803) Didymos. Post-impact observations from Earth-based optical telescopes and planetary radar would, in turn, measure the change in the moonlet’s orbit about the parent body.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
03/29/2021 – Ephemeris – NASA will fly spacecraft Psyche to asteroid 16 Psyche
This is Ephemeris for Monday, March 29th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 38 minutes, setting at 8:07, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:26. The Moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 9:28 this evening.
In the summer of 2022, about 15 months from now, NASA will launch a spacecraft called Psyche on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to 16 Psyche, an asteroid. 16 Psyche is a very special asteroid. It is mostly made of iron and nickel like iron meteorites and the cores of planets like the Earth. The spacecraft will be launched to get a gravity assist from Mars and will be using an ion engine to make its way to 16 Psyche and orbit it at various altitudes to see if it really is the remnant core of a protoplanet that was destroyed by collisions with other large asteroids. It would be of great interest for the future of asteroid mining companies for the precious metals it might contain. It’s big and has an average diameter of 140 miles (225 kilometers).
<p value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.Addendum
Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog 