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While her team made up of ASU researchers and students run the mission, JPL is in charge of building the spacecraft, engineering, and mission operations. For the first time in a deep space mission, the team recruited a commercial satellite company to help build the main structure of Psyche. They decided rather than building the spacecraft from scratch that they would turn to experts in the field of commercial satellites. It could save time and money rather than starting with nothing. Maxar Technologies in Northern California, which is a major builder of satellites that orbit Earth, was hired to build the chassis of Psyche.

“So they know how to do Earth orbiters. What we needed to do though is figure out how we are going to take that big bus structure and fly it to deep space,” JPL Project Manager Henry Stone, who is in charge of getting Psyche built and ready to fly in time for launch next year, told ABC News.

\"PHOTO:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
PHOTO: The Psyche spacecraft undergoes a system integration and test in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Aug,. 18, 2021.
>

When Maxar delivered the chassis to JPL last March, it had most of the bones needed including the propulsion system, electrical and navigation already onboard. But Maxar’s satellites have not gone into deep space.

Stone’s teams are working around the clock to make sure they have thought of everything that could go wrong once Psyche launches.

“How do I lay out a plan and a schedule that accounts for all the work that needs to be done to a hard launch date? This is a planetary launch. We don’t get to move it around. It has to go. The planets are aligned and waiting for us,” Stone said.

Stone has organized a team of people in the hundreds to make sure the craft is ready for launch next August.

\"PHOTO:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
PHOTO: Engineers work on the Gamma Ray/Neutron Spectrometer that will launch aboard the Psyche spacedraft to detect, measure and map the asteroid Psyche's elemental composition, at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Md., July 7, 2020.
>

The project includes student collaboration efforts in which undergrad college students around the country are taking part in the mission in different ways. Some are creating art or music inspired by Psyche.

Soon Psyche will undergo intense testing on the JPL campus to simulate the extreme heat, cold and vacuum of space to make sure it stays intact and no pieces fly off or stop working.

Once the greenlight is given, Psyche will be transported to Florida and prepared for launch. After launch and the lengthy journey to the asteroid, the spacecraft will orbit the asteroid for 21 months using a magnetometer and other gadgets like a neutron spectrometer to analyze the metals inside the object.

Psyche will also test a new form of space communication utilizing light to send back data. Deep Space Optical Communications will attempt to use lasers millions of miles from Earth to beam back data that could have so much bandwidth that it could even stream video, if it works.

“If we can show that all of the science data lines up to say that is the core of an early planet that got all the rocks and everything blown off it… That would be huge,” said Stone. “But if it’s not that we will discover that it’s something so unbelievably new it will be some primordial metal mass or whatever it is, you can argue that almost a greater thing to have found. Either way it’s a win for NASA and the project and everybody.”

In fact Elkins-Tanton’s secret wish is that when the spacecraft arrives her team finds out it’s not what they expected and it’s actually a material and an object never before seen. Her team should know in 2026.

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