NASA’s Psyche—Maxar Space’s First Deep Space Spacecraft— Performing Well After Launch
The Californer/10257626

~ NASA's longest mission to use commercial solar electric propulsion (SEP) was launched earlier today, with the unique spacecraft chassis built by Maxar Space. The Maxar 1300™ series bus, the world's most trusted space platform, was used to construct the Psyche spacecraft chassis at its manufacturing center in Palo Alto, California.

The Psyche spacecraft has successfully spread its two solar arrays and started maneuvers towards the asteroid belt. Despite its small size, it packs a powerful propulsion system for a one-way journey that will travel 2.2 billion miles (3.6 billion kilometers). It carries the largest load of Xenon ever aboard a spacecraft to help power its thrusters. The thrusters will use electromagnetic fields to accelerate and expel charged atoms, or ions, of that xenon in order to create thrust and move Psyche through space.

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Chris Johnson, CEO for Maxar Space commented on the mission: "Psyche will break records for deep space travel using SEP. Maxar leads the industry in propulsion systems that use the Sun's energy to keep a mission moving. Psyche's propulsion system is three times as powerful as SEP systems on more than 40 spacecraft we've built, and we're producing a more powerful version for the Power and Propulsion Element of NASA's Gateway space station."

Maxar was selected to provide the spacecraft platform for the Psyche mission under a firm-fixed-price contract. The mission is led by Arizona State University with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory responsible for overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. In addition to Psyche, NASA will use this platform and SEP technology for other missions such as OSAM-1 mission and Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument as part of their Artemis Program.

The Psyche spacecraft is set to arrive at its 140-mile-wide target asteroid in 2029 where it will spend 26 months orbiting and collecting data from it before completing its 2.2 billion mile journey through deep space.

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