NASA on Friday halted an asteroid mission, blaming the late delivery of its own navigation software. The Psyche mission to a strange metallic asteroid of the same name was scheduled to launch this September or October. But the agency’s Jet Propulsion Lab delayed several months to deliver its software for navigation, guidance and control — a critical part of any spacecraft. Engineers “just ran out of time” to test it, officials said Friday.
Now, the space agency is going back, and an independent review will look into what went wrong, when Spacecraft A re-launch could happen and even if it should go ahead, NASA planetary science chief Lori Glaze Told,
NASA But has already spent $717 million (about Rs 5,600 crore) psyche And its estimated total cost, including the rocket to launch it, is $985 million (about Rs 7,700 crore). The small car-sized spacecraft was originally about to arrive at its small star After traveling more than 1 billion miles in 2026.
Now that the software has been distributed, there are no known problems with the spacecraft, except that “we haven’t tested it yet,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Manas Mission Chief Scientist.
“There is a challenge we could not overcome in time to launch with confidence in 2022,” she said.
There are opportunities for at least two launches next year and more in 2024 to reach the asteroid sitting in the belt. Mars planet And JupiterTold JPL Director Laurie Leshin. This means that Psyche will not reach its asteroid until 2029 or 2030.
But calculating launch times is complicated because the mission requires proper sunlight conditions and the asteroid “is spinning like a rotisserie chicken rather than on top,” Elkins-Tanton said.
two other smaller missions were to go together SpaceX falcon Heavy rockets and NASA are watching what will happen to them.
Psyche is the latest in NASA’s fleet of asteroid-finding spacecraft. Osiris-Rex Coming Back to Earth With Debris from Asteroid [Bennu](https://gadgets360.com/science/news/bennu-asteroid-nasa-boulder-body-armour-protection-meteorites-osiris-rex-spacecraft-3078583). Last year, NASA launched the Lucy and Dart ships to explore other space rocks and test whether a rocket was definitively headed toward an asteroid. Earth,