America's Next Great Observatory Is Now at Kennedy Space Center for Flight Preparations!

NASA / Amber Jean Notvest

NASA’s Next-Generation Telescope Arrives in Florida Ahead of Launch (News Release)

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 21, marking the start of final prelaunch preparations before liftoff later this summer.

After teams completed integration and testing on the observatory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, they loaded Roman into a protective and environmentally-controlled transportation container and drove it to the port of Baltimore. There, the agency’s Pegasus barge safely transported the nearly 18,000-pound (8,200-kilogram) spacecraft down the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to its new home in Florida at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, which recently completed upgrades to prepare for Roman’s arrival.

Technicians met the telescope at NASA Kennedy’s turn basin wharf and offloaded the trailer carrying the observatory from the barge, where they connected it to a truck that transported Roman to the servicing facility.

When the spacecraft arrives at the facility, technicians will complete initial cleaning outside the building before moving the shipping container into the facility’s airlock. Once in the airlock, they will perform additional cleaning to reduce any remaining contaminants from the trip. The facility’s air filtration system will also scrub the air until the team can safely open the inner door.

Once inside the facility, technicians will unbox the spacecraft, raise it to a vertical position in the airlock, and move it into the clean room.

On Monday, June 22, technicians plan to remove the cover from the transport container and move Roman into the high bay. Later, technicians will use large cranes to move Roman to its work platform - called the Pantheon. During the observatory’s time at the processing facility, technicians will perform several tasks, including testing the six solar panels and inspecting Roman’s insulation and thermal blankets to ensure that the observatory is fully protected and flight ready.

Specially-trained team members will load about 290 gallons of hydrazine fuel into the spacecraft’s tanks.

NASA is targeting launch no earlier than Sunday, August 30, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy. This puts Roman eight months ahead of schedule.

After launch, Roman will travel to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2. There, it will make observations that give astronomers the chance to study an incredible number of new objects. Roman’s wide field of view and rapid survey capabilities will reveal billions of galaxies, hundreds of thousands of new exoplanets, hundreds of blackholes, and will provide vast volumes of daily data for astronomers to study.

The observatory will also map how common different kinds of planets are in our galaxy and help answer big questions about the Universe, like what’s causing its rapid expansion and what distant worlds and cosmic objects look like in infrared light. In addition to its main instrument, which features a 300-megapixel camera, Roman will demonstrate technology designed to block starlight to directly image exoplanets and planet-forming disks.

Alongside Roman, the Pegasus barge also carried a weather cover for the Artemis III SLS (Space Launch System) core stage. The cover will protect the stage thermal systems while it sits at Launch Complex 39B in its short stack configuration. Because schedules aligned, the barge was able to transport NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission together with the Artemis hardware, maximizing resources to support missions across the agency during the Golden Age of innovation and exploration.

Source: NASA.Gov

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She's nearly home! NASA's brand new Nancy Grace Roman Telescope has officially been delivered to Kennedy Space Center to complete final fueling and integration in preparation for launch on Falcon Heavy later this year. pic.twitter.com/ZqLWQ9GtWd

— Jerry Pike (@JerryPikePhoto) June 21, 2026

Marking a Quarter Century Since the 2001 NBA Championship...

On this day 25 years ago, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers won their second straight NBA title in the Kobe-Shaquille O'Neal era. They went 15-1 in the playoffs that spring...sweeping the Portland Trailblazers, Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs before defeating the Philadelphia 76ers in five games during the NBA Finals.

That was an awesome postseason! We'll see what the Lakers do this summer in their attempt to become the kings of the West again. And then going on to win their 18th NBA championship in franchise history.

On This Day in 1996: Cool Things Happened in High School...

Richard T. Par

Just thought I'd point out that today marks 30 years since I had my final exam that concluded 10th grade at my alma mater, Bishop Amat Memorial High School! The test that I took on June 13, 1996 was for my English II class...which I had for 7th period.

So why was this date memorable, you ask? Because of a girl I had a crush on, of course! I won't divulge her (full) name here, but she was the prettiest Filipina in my class—and probably in all of Amat, truthfully—and I was fortunate enough to have managed to be on speaking terms with her for much of sophomore year.

We hugged after the English II exam ended (she was also in my homeroom and 3rd period World History class, respectively), and that was the last time I saw her for almost the next two years. (She ended up transferring to another high school for 11th and 12th grade, but showed up at a birthday party of one Amat classmate in February of '98, and the graduation party of another classmate four months later.) This hug was so big that my brother's friends (they all graduated from Amat two weeks before) found out about it afterwards...and expressed awe at my lucky moment.

That's how significant it was that I was on good terms with Des during the 1995-'96 school year!

America's Newest X-Plane Has Finally Broken the Sound Barrier!

NASA / Lori Losey

NASA’s X-59 Aircraft Flies Supersonic for First Time (News Release)

NASA’s experimental X-59 aircraft marked a major milestone on Friday, June 5, when it flew faster than the speed of sound for the first time, setting the stage for demonstrating its quiet supersonic capabilities later this year.

NASA test pilot Jim “Clue” Less took off and landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, reaching a top speed of approximately Mach 1.1 (713 mph) and altitude of 43,400 feet. The X-59’s flight began at 11:08 a.m. PDT and lasted 81 minutes, with the team focusing on flying qualities at both subsonic and then supersonic speeds.

”X-59 is getting ready for its quiet supersonic debut. Since the aircraft’s first flight on October 28, 2025, the team has made tremendous progress, flying 16 times in the last 90 days and getting into a steady test rhythm. In the coming days, we expect to take the next step and push to Mach 1.4,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “I’m grateful to the NASA team and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works for their help getting us to this point, and I hope this is the first of many collaborations as we rebuild NASA’s X-plane portfolio.”

The X-59 is designed to fly at supersonic speeds while creating only a quiet thump instead of a loud sonic boom. For this flight, a NASA F‑15 chase plane flew nearby to monitor the X‑59. The loud sonic booms from the F-15 obscured any sound made by the X-59.

This first supersonic flight is a significant milestone, but an event even more critical to the mission is upcoming. In just days, the aircraft is expected to make its first “mission conditions” flight, reaching a cruising speed of Mach 1.4 (925 mph) and altitude of approximately 55,000 feet. The X-59 will also be accompanied by a chase plane for this flight.

This speed and altitude are the base conditions for the X-59 when it will eventually fly over several U.S. communities, enabling NASA to gather data about how people may perceive its quiet thump. NASA will share this data with U.S. and international regulators to help establish new data-driven noise standards to enable a future viable market for supersonic commercial flight over land.

For the last several months, the X-59 has been participating in an ongoing series of flights where the plane has been flying at a wide range of speeds and altitudes – a process known as envelope expansion. These tests are the first phase of the X-59’s flight testing. They are focused on performance and involve chase plane monitoring.

When the X-59 completes this phase it will enter another, focused on its sound profile in order to verify its quiet thump capability.

The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s QueSST mission, which aims to demonstrate quiet supersonic flight and help enable commercial supersonic flight over land worldwide. These advancements will help travelers reach their preferred destinations faster, spending less time in the air.

Through QueSST’s development of the X-59, NASA will also deliver design tools and technology for quiet supersonic airliners that will achieve the high speeds desired by commercial operators without disturbing people on the ground. NASA will validate design tools through ground and flight testing, providing U.S. aircraft manufacturers the ability to explore new quiet supersonic concepts, and provide them with confidence that their resulting designs will meet quiet flight requirements.

Source: NASA.Gov

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America's Next Great Observatory Has an Official Launch Date!

NASA / Jolearra Tshiteya

Hello, World! NASA Shares New Home for Roman Space Telescope Updates (News Release)

We’re kicking off the inaugural Roman blog post with a launch update: NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is officially slated to launch on August 30, eight months ahead of schedule and even earlier than previously targeted.

With less than three months to go, the Roman team is now finishing up final tasks. Engineers are currently packing Roman up for a voyage from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, down to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida later this month.

Once at Kennedy, Roman will move into the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where it will undergo a thorough inspection to verify that all of the observatory’s components traveled well. In the weeks leading up to launch, engineers will perform powered testing and launch rehearsals, load about 290 gallons (roughly 1,100 liters) of hydrazine fuel into the tanks, and install the observatory on the adapter for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that will propel it to its destination in space: the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, which is about four times farther away than the Moon is from Earth.

Next, Roman will be encapsulated in a protective fairing, or nose cone, which will shield the telescope during liftoff and its journey through the atmosphere. Roman will then move to a hangar for integration with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket before rolling out to Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy.

All this work will culminate in Roman delivering never-before seen views of the Universe. The observatory will pair a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to survey deep, vast swaths of sky. While the mission was designed with dark energy, dark matter, and planets outside our Solar System in mind, Roman’s unprecedented observational capability will offer practically limitless opportunities for astronomers to explore a broad range of cosmic phenomena.

Source: NASA.Gov

On This Day in 2021: An Exciting Flyby Mission of Neptune and Triton Was Shunned by NASA...

L.M. Prockter et al. LPI / JPL / SwRI / Richard T. Par

So today marks 5 years since the Trident mission—which involved a Voyager 2-type flyby of Neptune and its main moon Triton—was rejected by NASA in favor of two Venus missions for its Discovery program.

Trident was supposed to launch as early as last October and no later than this October. It would've flew past Neptune and Triton in June 2038. What could've been...

Click here to read a full Blog entry on my reaction to Trident's loss in that competition half a decade ago.

The Latest Update on America's Next Saturn-bound Robotic Explorer...

NASA

NASA’s Dragonfly Flight System Faces Heat (News Release)

In preparation for the journey to reach the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, the heat shield for NASA’s Dragonfly mission completed thermal-structural testing in the New Mexico desert. Dragonfly team members, including those from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, collaborated with personnel at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to stress-test Dragonfly’s heat shield materials, ensuring that the rotorcraft will be safely delivered through Titan’s dense atmosphere.

Dragonfly’s thermal protection material, made from carbon fiber and a lightweight resin, performed as expected in combined mechanical and thermal testing, even in cases when it was intentionally marred with defects.

Sandia’s Solar Tower test facility houses an array of hundreds of calibrated mirror-like systems to focus energy from the Sun onto a tower holding the test unit. Operators generated temperatures around 4,500° Fahrenheit (nearly 2,500° Celsius) on segments of Dragonfly’s heat shield material. Tests examined tolerance to thermal radiation as well as the rapid change in temperature that researchers expect Dragonfly to experience.

The Sandia test series involved multiple iterations in conditions like those expected during Dragonfly’s entry into Titan’s atmosphere. Additional testing subjected large samples of the heat-shield material to mechanical and thermal stress to simultaneously simulate the pressure of high-speed atmospheric entry and intense thermal conditions. Thermal testing of the heat-shield’s curved shoulder units was also performed.

“We were pleased to see the heat shield material pass these tests, even with the flaws we intentionally included, like those that might naturally occur during fabrication and integration,” said Milad Mahzari, the Dragonfly entry vehicle thermal protection system lead at NASA Ames.

Dragonfly’s heat shield uses a variation of a NASA-invented material called PICA, or Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator. The original PICA material was used to deliver NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers to Mars. PICA-D, a new variant of PICA, is planned for flight on Dragonfly and was the focus of this test series.

“We tested the heat shield as a complete system, including the primary PICA-D material, gap fillers, and potential manufacturing defects,” Mahzari said, adding that researchers plan to conduct additional analysis of PICA-D before final construction of the heat shield begins.

Dragonfly rotorcraft integration and testing continues at APL, which designed Dragonfly and leads the mission for NASA. Dragonfly is scheduled to launch in 2028 and reach Titan in 2034 to conduct science across multiple locations, sample surface materials to measure their detailed compositions, and observe geology and meteorology on the only moon in the Solar System known to have a substantial atmosphere.

Communications on board

Work continues to test and integrate Dragonfly’s communications system, including the antennas that will link the rotorcraft to operators back on Earth.

The team recently measured the signal patterns coming from Dragonfly’s largest antenna – its high-gain antenna, or HGA – in an APL test chamber that simulates the space environment. The HGA is a 34.4-inch diameter radial line slot antenna, which uses many small slots working together to create a narrow, focused radio beam.

The technology for this antenna was originally developed for NASA’s DART mission and is also flying on NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft.

“A simple way to picture the antenna is as a large flat showerhead: energy enters near the center and spreads out through the slots in a controlled pattern,” said Matt Bray, Dragonfly lead antenna designer at APL. “This design provides a low-cost, durable and compact approach to high-efficiency communications in extreme space environments and also provides aerodynamic benefits.”

The HGA, Dragonfly’s primary antenna for transmitting science data, will be attached to the top deck of the lander on a gimbal that allows it to track Earth from various locations on Titan’s surface. It will be covered with Kapton, a thermal insulator, for protection from Titan’s weather and crafted to operate in the moon’s frigid environment, where ambient temperatures are 290° below zero Fahrenheit (179° below zero Celsius).

The HGA will be one of three antennas on Dragonfly designed for operations at Titan. The lander will also fly a medium-gain antenna, primarily as a backup to the HGA, and a low-gain antenna, primarily to transmit status tones during flight as well as for emergency communications.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Ed Whitman

The Latest Update on America's Newest X-Plane...

NASA / Jim Ross

NASA’s X-59 Prepares for First Supersonic Flight (News Release)

NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft is preparing for some of its most significant flights yet. The X-plane is about to begin a new block of test flights that will include its first time flying faster than the speed of sound and other mission-critical objectives.

“What comes next is the first time this one-of-a-kind aircraft will fly supersonic,” said Cathy Bahm, project manager for NASA’s Low Boom Flight Demonstrator. “We are starting toward the mission conditions test point that X-59 was designed for.”

After months of flights, the X-59 team reviewed their progress in late May and now look towards the aircraft’s next series of flight tests, including higher altitudes and faster speeds. This will give engineers a look at how the X-59 handles under required operational conditions for NASA’s QueSST mission to eventually gather data on quiet supersonic flight.

The team expects the X-59 to fly supersonic – over 630 mph – for the first time at approximately 43,000 feet altitude during a series of test flights in early June, a major milestone for the aircraft. After that, it will conduct a “mission conditions” flight, where it will hit Mach 1.4 (925 mph) at approximately 55,000 feet. That speed and altitude are important because they’re NASA’s performance targets for the X-59 to eventually fly over U.S. communities to demonstrate quiet supersonic flight and collect feedback data about the aircraft’s quiet sonic “thump” from the public.

While the X-59 is designed to fly at supersonic speeds without producing a loud sonic boom, these early flights are not yet intended to demonstrate its quiet supersonic capabilities. The X-59 will be accompanied by a traditional supersonic chase plane, so any quiet thump that it produces in the current phase of testing will be obscured by louder, traditional sonic booms from the chase. In supersonic flights this summer, the chase aircraft will also be outfitted with a specialized shock-sensing probe to take initial measurements of the X-59’s shock waves.

Completed flights

The X-59’s first block of flights successfully met several test goals, generating data for its team to analyze. After making its first flight in October 2025, it entered a scheduled period of maintenance before returning to the skies in March 2026. It has since completed 14 additional flights, marking milestones including:

-- Its first gear swing, or the retraction of its landing gear to show off its sleek design for the first time.
-- Reaching altitudes up to 43,000 feet and near supersonic speeds at Mach 0.95, approximately 627 mph.
-- Marking its first dual-flight day and then making those increasingly routine as the X-59 team increased flight cadence.
-- After a period of moving higher and faster, transitioning into lower and slower test flight conditions so engineers could gather information on the X-59’s behavior across a range of flight conditions.

Data collected during the X-59’s first block of test flights helped teams better assess critical systems, including fuel, hydraulics, environmental controls, and the eXternal Vision System, which is the aircraft’s unique series of cameras that feed into a monitor that allows the pilot to see forward instead of using a traditional windshield. Teams monitored how the aircraft behaved during takeoff, landing, and throughout flight. Strain gauges installed throughout the X-59 collected detailed information on the forces that it experienced, and how its structure responded to them.

Next steps

During the X-59’s upcoming flights, pilots will run through test points while engineers watch the aircraft’s performance — but now in supersonic flight conditions.

“Flying at supersonic speeds is a major milestone for the X-59 team,” Bahm said. “Every step of envelope expansion brings us closer to demonstrating the quiet supersonic capability that is at the heart of the QueSST mission. Completing the first mission-conditions flight is especially meaningful – it’s the moment where we begin validating the aircraft in the environment it was designed for.”

In addition to reaching mission condition during this block of flight tests, the X-59 will also achieve its maximum speed of Mach 1.6 (1,218 mph) and altitude of 60,000 feet.

But just because the aircraft can go that fast doesn’t mean it will always fly supersonic. Testing will continue, including a mix of subsonic and lower-altitude flights so the team can continue monitoring it in varied conditions.

“These flights not only deepen our confidence in the X-59’s performance – they mark our progression toward the future phases of the mission that will ultimately help shape the future of supersonic travel,” Bahm said.

All flights so far and in the upcoming test block are part of Phase 1 of the X-59’s QueSST mission, focused on proving the performance and airworthiness of the aircraft. Some of those flights will include early deployment of equipment, including a probe mounted to one of NASA’s F-15 research aircraft that can measure the X-59’s unique shock wave signature.

Data gathered during those early probing flights will allow engineers to prepare for a new stage of work set to begin later this year: QueSST Phase 2, when teams will begin to measure the aircraft’s supersonic flight signature to verify that it’s producing a quiet supersonic thump, as designed.

“Aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal said, ‘To design a flying machine is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything.’ The 15 X-59 flights we’ve accomplished since March have been everything to this team and the mission,” Bahm said. “Every flight has pushed the boundaries of what’s possible, steadily expanding the envelope and strengthening our confidence in the aircraft.”

But, she said, rather than focusing on past progress, the team is already looking ahead.

“As we look ahead to the upcoming flights, we’re poised to open the envelope even further – moving boldly toward the mission test point this aircraft was built to achieve,” Bahm said. “Flying supersonic and reaching these milestones isn’t just progress; it’s the realization of years of perseverance, innovation and teamwork. Each step brings us closer to Phase 2, and to the future of commercial supersonic flight.”

Source: NASA.Gov

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Photos of the Day: STARS ON ICE in Anaheim...

Richard T. Par

Today marks one week since I went to the Honda Center in Anaheim to watch Stars on Ice...an event that celebrated top athletes in the figure skating world. This occasion featured all of the Team USA members who won gold medals in the sport at this year's Winter Olympic Games!

The top draw of the night was Alysa Liu, who was the first American since Sarah Hughes in 2002 to win an individual gold medal in figure skating. Joining her was Amber Glenn, Isabeau Levito (the three of them form a dynamic skating trio known as the Blade Angels), Ilia Malinin (the "Quad God"), Madison Chock, her husband and skating partner Evan Bates, as well as Ellie Kam and her skating partner Danny O'Shea.

Along with pictures, I've also posted tweets with videos of some of the performances from seven days ago. In case you're wondering why the photos and videos below aren't exactly DSLR or UHD quality, it's because I sat near the top of the nosebleed section at Honda Center for this event!

Anyways, Stars on Ice was very enjoyable. If this is what it feels like to watch top American Olympians in action, then I definitely need to attend a competition or two at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics!

Of course, it would've helped if I bought tickets to the LA28 Games when they immediately became available over a month ago... Oh well. Happy Saturday!


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Amber Glenn skates to the DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE version of Madonna's 'Like a Prayer' at the Honda Center last night#SOI26 pic.twitter.com/QV0UyVpnxb

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) May 17, 2026

The Blade Angels (Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito) perform "Golden" from KPOP DEMON HUNTERS at #SOI26 in Anaheim three days ago pic.twitter.com/31NGCeLR2s

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) May 20, 2026

Amber Glenn performs another program in Anaheim on May 16#SOI26 pic.twitter.com/Ydk2Zd6Dwx

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) May 22, 2026

Madison Chock and Evan Bates perform to the tune of clapping in Anaheim on May 16#SOI26 pic.twitter.com/hId4natA8X

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) May 23, 2026

The Latest Update on America's Newest Asteroid Explorer...

NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASU

NASA’s Psyche Mission Aces Mars Flyby, Targets Metal-Rich Asteroid (News Release)

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This flyby used a gravity assist from Mars to provide a critical boost in speed and to adjust the spacecraft’s orbital plane without using any onboard propellant, sending it on its way towards the metal-rich asteroid Psyche.

The spacecraft is now headed directly towards the asteroid, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. After the Mars flyby, the flight team analyzed radio signals between the spacecraft and NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), the agency’s global system for communicating with interplanetary spacecraft, to confirm that Psyche was on the correct trajectory.

“Although we were confident in our calculations and flight plan, monitoring the DSN’s Doppler signal in real time during the flyby was still exciting,” said Don Han, Psyche’s navigation lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We’ve confirmed that Mars gave the spacecraft a 1,000 mile‑per‑hour boost and shifted its orbital plane by about 1 degree relative to the Sun. We are now on course for arrival at the asteroid Psyche in summer 2029.”

Unique Martian view

In the days running up to and during close approach, all of Psyche’s instruments were powered up for calibration efforts, including its imagers, magnetometers, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer. The planetary encounter provided the mission a valuable practice run for when it reaches the asteroid Psyche; as a bonus, it captured Mars images from a rare perspective.

Because Psyche approached Mars from a high phase angle, the planet appeared as a thin crescent in the days running up to the close approach, lit by sunlight reflecting off its surface. In observations from the spacecraft’s multispectral imager, the crescent appeared brighter and extended farther around the planet’s disk than anticipated because of the strong scattering of sunlight through the planet’s dusty atmosphere. As Psyche passed from Mars’ nighttime skies to daytime, it took a rapid series of pictures of the surface around the time of closest approach.

“We’ve captured thousands of images of the approach to Mars and of the planet’s surface and atmosphere at close approach. This dataset provides unique and important opportunities for us to calibrate and characterize the performance of the cameras, as well as test the early versions of our image processing tools being developed for use at the asteroid Psyche,” said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe. “As the spacecraft continues its journey after the flyby, we’ll continue calibration imaging of Mars for the rest of the month as it recedes into the distance.”

Bell also leads the Mastcam-Z imaging investigation on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission team, which was among several missions that provided complementary surface and atmospheric imaging as well as navigation data during the flyby to help with calibration efforts. Other missions involved include NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, and Curiosity rover, along with ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

In addition to the imager, early calibration measurements made by Psyche’s magnetometers may have detected Mars’ bow shock as the spacecraft passed the planet. The gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer team was also quickly gathering data to calibrate the instrument by comparing their measurements with the large pool of existing Mars data.

Onward to asteroid Psyche

With Mars in the rearview mirror, the spacecraft will soon resume using its solar-electric propulsion system to make a beeline to the main asteroid belt. When it arrives in August 2029, it will insert itself into orbit around the asteroid Psyche, which is thought to be the partial core of a planetesimal, a building block of an early planet. Through a series of circular orbits that go lower and then higher in altitude around Psyche, which is about 173 miles (280 kilometers) across at its widest point, the spacecraft will map the asteroid and gather science data.

If the asteroid proves to be the metallic core of an ancient planetesimal, it could offer a one-of-a-kind window into the interior of rocky planets like Earth.

“We’ve been anticipating the Mars flyby for years, but now it’s complete. We can thank the Red Planet for giving our spacecraft a critical gravitational slingshot farther into the Solar System,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator for Psyche at the University of California, Berkeley. “Onward to the asteroid Psyche!”

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA / JPL - Caltech / ASU / Thomas Appéré