Future Power Solutions for Exploring Hypothesized Surfaces – ASU – C
INSTITUTION
Arizona State University (ASU)
CLASS
Iridium Class (2024 – 2025)
STUDENT TEAM
ACADEMIC GUIDANCE
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The NASA Psyche mission is an orbiter mission to the metal-rich asteroid, Psyche, in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft, which launched in October 2023 and will arrive at the asteroid in mid-2029, will study the asteroid from orbit and will not land on the surface. It is possible to imagine, however, that after learning about Psyche from orbit, there may be scientists and engineers interested in proposing a future mission to explore or sample the surface. Such a mission would need to consider innovative yet feasible solutions for providing power to a surface spacecraft. Using the asteroid’s known and hypothesized environmental and surface conditions, which have been laid out in recent scientific reports (and keeping in mind other constraints such as its gravity, length of day and year, rotation, surface temperature, etc.), the team will design a solution for a potential future mission. Hypothesized surfaces and terrain may include: mostly flat metallic surface, flat metallic with metal and/or rocky debris, rough/high-relief metallic and/or rocky terrain, high-relief metallic crater walls.