[U] "Psyche" Mission Now Cleared For A Thursday Liftoff -- From Kennedy Space Center.

We've been following this upcoming mission since 2021. With all pre-launch issues now well-resolved. . . NASA is touting this slightly-delayed trip, to a metal rich asteroid that may have been, about 3 million years ago, the core of a planetesimal -- stripped, by a series of collisions. To be sure, as the masthead below indicates -- this is a long term (2029-ish) mission to cruise into position -- for the science, proper to begin.

In any event, here are all those latest details, from NASA:

. . .NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities ahead of the launch of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The Psyche spacecraft will travel about 2.2 billion miles to study a metal-rich asteroid of the same name. The asteroid, which lies in the outer portion of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may be part of a core of a planetesimal (a building block of a planet) and can tell us more about planetary cores and Earth’s own formation.

Psyche is targeting liftoff at 10:16 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 12, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft also is hosting a technology demonstration, NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC), which will be the first test of laser communications beyond the Moon. . . .

Now you know. . . grinning into a fine Sunday afternoon -- heading to a town art fair, with my baby girl. . . smile.



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