SpaceX Launches NASA's Psyche Spacecraft Heading To The Metal Asteroid

Psyche spacecraft lifted off at 1419 UTC(on Oct. 13) atop SpaceX's triple-booster Falcon Heavy rocket, from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The NASA probe will now travel six years and ~3.5 billion kilometers to a metallic space rock(officially designated 16 Psyche) currently orbiting the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

In just under 2.5 minutes into liftoff, Falcon Heavy’s side boosters cut off their engines, detached from the central core stage, and headed back to Florida's Space Coast to perform simultaneous landings. And about four minutes after liftoff, Heavy’s core booster shut down its first-stage engines and separated from the rocket's second stage, which was tasked with carrying Psyche the rest of the way to orbital escape velocity.

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters began their landing burns eight minutes after liftoff, touching down at SpaceX’s Landing Zones 1 and 2, several miles downrange of Pad 39A, and sending four successive sonic booms echoing for miles across the Space Coast. The core booster careened to its destructive fate in the depths of the sea. (Maximum fuel was allotted to ensure Psyche's nominal trajectory, hence there was no attempt to land the core booster on one of SpaceX's autonomous drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean).

The first burn of Falcon Heavy’s second stage ended about 8.5 minutes after launch (T+00:08:26). A second, two-minute burn occurred around T+00:54:00, which was followed by spacecraft separation at T+01:02:09.

Psyche will now spend about an hour unfolding and deploying its massive solar arrays, which cover 75 square meters, and together span the length of a tennis court. It is NASA's first interplanetary spacecraft equipped with Hall-effect thrusters. The electric propulsion system is completely dependent on the ability of the probe's arrays to harness solar energy.