The Science Behind the Psyche Spacecraft (News Briefing)

The Psyche spacecraft will journey 2.2 billion miles to an asteroid that scientists hypothesize is made of substantial amounts of metal. It may contain leftover material from the core of a planetesimal, a building block of an early planet, and could tell us more about how the solar system formed. The mission will use a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager to study this unique planetary body.

In this science briefing, experts on the mission will provide insight into how the instruments aboard Psyche will investigate Psyche’s magnetic field, its chemical composition, and its surface features.

Participants:
Lori Glaze, NASA's Planetary Sciences Division director, NASA
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche principal investigator, Arizona State University
Ben Weiss, deputy PI and magnetometer lead, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
David Oh, chief engineer for operations, NASA JPL
Abi Biswas, Deep Space Optical Communications project technologist, NASA JPL