Behind the Spacecraft: New Video Series Reveals What Drives NASA’s Psyche Mission Team

By Jet Propulsion LaboratoryAugust 27, 2023

NASA’s Psyche mission to a distant metal asteroid will carry a revolutionary Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

“Behind the Spacecraft” is a series of short videos that offer glimpses of the people who’ve helped make this upcoming journey to a metal-rich asteroid possible.

What motivates someone to dedicate years to help construct something that will be rocketed into space, never to be seen again on our planet? For the scientists, engineers, and technicians behind NASA’s Psyche mission to a metal-rich asteroid, the answers are wide-ranging. However, they share a common thread: a passion to explore the unknown.

Members of NASA’s Psyche mission – from left, Luis Dominguez, Christina Hernandez, Meena Sreekantamurthy, Julie Li, and Ben Inouye – are featured in a new “Behind the Spacecraft” video series from the agency. Credit: NASA

That inspiration is highlighted in the new “Behind the Spacecraft” video series, in which five members of the Psyche team tell the story of how they ended up on a mission designed to answer questions about the mysterious asteroid Psyche.

Watch a trailer about the series:

Meet some of the engineers who helped build NASAEstablished in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Its vision is "To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity." Its core values are "safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion." NASA conducts research, develops technology and launches missions to explore and study Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond. It also works to advance the state of knowledge in a wide range of scientific fields, including Earth and space science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics, and it collaborates with private companies and international partners to achieve its goals." data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">NASA’s Psyche mission, which is set to launch in October on a journey of 2.2 billion miles (3.6 billion kilometers) to a metal-rich asteroid of the same name. Credit: NASA

Meet Christina Hernandez, a flight systems engineer on NASA’s Psyche mission, which will be the first to explore a metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche. In this video Hernandez, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talks about getting Psyche ready for launch through the spacecraft’s verification-and-validation phase and her passion for heavy metal music. Credit: NASA

Produced by NASA 360, the videos will be released weekly on Tuesdays. The first (embedded above) was released on August 22. JPL will host a livestream with Julie Li at 1 p.m. EDTEDT is an abbreviation for Eastern Daylight Time, the time zone for the eastern coast of the United States and Canada when observing daylight saving time (spring/summer). It is four hours behind Coordinated Universal Time. New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, and the Kennedy Space Center are in the Eastern Time Zone (ET)." data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">EDT (10 a.m. PDT) on September 13 and one with Luis Dominguez at 1 p.m. EDT (10 a.m. PDT) on September 20 on JPL YouTube, Facebook, and X. Questions can be submitted via the livestream chats.

Psyche is set to launch atop a SpaceXCommonly known as SpaceX, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company that was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. Headquartered in Hawthorne, California, the company designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. SpaceX's ultimate goal is to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars." data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center at 10:38 a.m. EDT (7:38 a.m. PDT) on October 5, with additional opportunities scheduled through October 25.

Spanning approximately 173 miles (279 kilometers) at its broadest, the asteroid Psyche may be a fragmentary core of a planetesimal (one of the building blocks of a rocky planet), or it could be primordial material that never melted. The primary objective of the Psyche mission is to discern between these possibilities. The mission will further shed light on the mysteries surrounding Earth’s metallic core and the genesis of our solar system. Upon its scheduled arrival at Psyche in 2029, the spacecraft will embark on a 26-month observation period, capturing images and collecting data to enhance our understanding of the asteroid.