(AGENPARL) – ven 01 settembre 2023 September 01, 2023 
MEDIA ADVISORY M23-110
*NASA to Discuss Psyche Asteroid Mission, Optical Communications Demo*
pia25138.jpg
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft en route to its
destination in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
*/Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/*
NASA will host a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 6, to discuss
the agency’s upcoming Psyche mission [1], which will be its first to visit
a metal-rich asteroid. Riding along with Psyche is a laser transceiver for
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC [2]) technology
demonstration.
The media briefing will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app
[3], Facebook [4], X [5], YouTube [6], and on the agency’s website [7].
The agency will share any changes to this streaming information based on the
timing of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission departure [8] from the
International Space Station.
Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in
Southern California, will provide opening remarks. Briefing participants are
expected to include:
* Lori Glaze, director, Planetary Sciences Division, NASA Headquarters in
Washington
* Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator of Psyche, Arizona State
University
* Henry Stone, project manager, Psyche, JPL
* Abi Biswas, project technologist for DSOC, JPL
* Serkan Bastug, mission manager, Launch Services Program, NASA Kennedy
To ask questions by phone, members of the media must RSVP no later than two
hours before the start of the event to Rexana Vizza at:
Questions can be asked on social media during the briefing using #AskNASA.
Psyche is scheduled to launch at 10:38 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 5, atop a
SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
in Florida. Additional launch opportunities are available through Wednesday,
Oct. 25. Information about the times each day the spacecraft can launch [10]
is online.
Managed by JPL, the mission will embark on a journey of about 2.2 billion
miles (3.6 billion kilometers) to the asteroid Psyche, which may be the
partial core of a planetesimal (one of the building blocks of a rocky planet)
or could be primordial material that never melted.
Once the spacecraft reaches its target in 2029, it will spend approximately
26 months orbiting Psyche, gathering images and other data. The mission will
help answer fundamental questions about Earth’s own metal core and the
formation of our solar system.
DSOC, the agency’s first test of high-bandwidth optical communications
beyond the Moon, will ride along with Psyche. The project aims to show how
lasers could increase data transmission rates far beyond the capacity of
current radio frequency systems used on spacecraft today. 
For more information about NASA’s Psyche mission, visit:
*http://www.nasa.gov/psyche* [11]
-end-
*Press Contacts*
Alise Fisher / Alana Johnson
Headquarters, Washington
202-617-4977 / 202-358-1501
Gretchen McCartney / Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215 / 626-314-4928
NASA news releases and other information are available automatically by
text in the body is required).
To unsubscribe from the list, send an e-mail message
is required).
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/psyche
[2] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/deep-space-optical-communications-dsoc
[3] https://www.nasa.gov/connect/apps.html
[7] https://www.nasa.gov/live
[8] https://blogs.nasa.gov/crew-6/2023/09/01/weather-delays-nasas-spacex-crew-6-undocking-from-station-on-saturday/
[10] http://go.nasa.gov/3seZc18
[11] http://www.nasa.gov/psyche