Tag: space

November 2, 2023 / Paige Arthur

Last Glimpse

My eyes flew open in the dark. I glanced at the digital clock on my bedside table — 3:30 in the morning, nearly two hours before my alarm was set to go off. Knowing there was no way I could...

November 16, 2021 / Karin Valentine

Symbolizing a journey to a metal world: How the Psyche “badge” came to be

The Psyche mission “badge” was first developed in 2016, before the mission was selected for NASA’s Discovery Program. Since then, it has been called a “badge” or a “logo” or even...
Image of the Science Data Center, located at Arizona State University.

March 30, 2020 / Ernest Cisneros

What happens to the data collected by the Psyche Mission?

NASA space missions like Psyche collect data (images, spectra, etc) and send the data back to Earth, but what then? That’s where my job comes in as the Manager of the Psyche Science Data Center...

August 6, 2019 / Bill Hart

Some thoughts on trade studies

When I was an undergrad student at a university in northern Indiana with a penchant for football, Wednesday and Thursday nights were reserved for one thing: homework. I wasn’t necessarily driven...
A chart of psyche PDR dates and locations.

October 24, 2018 / Lindy Elkins-Tanton

PDR Season

It’s the festive completion of the mission’s formulation stage What’s a PDR? A Preliminary Design Review. The objective is to evaluate the project’s readiness to proceed with implementation,...
This image shows a multicolored chart comparing the phases of a space mission with the phases of making a movie.

July 26, 2018 / David Oh

“How Building Psyche is like Making a Movie…”

What are Psyche’s Systems Engineers doing now? I’m David Oh, and this is my second time writing for the Psyche Blog. As Psyche’s Project Systems Engineer, I lead a team responsible for...
This image shows a "V model" (a chart shaped like a "v"). The "V model" offers a graphical interpretation of the key roles of a systems engineer, relative to a project's life cycle.

June 6, 2018 / Bill Hart

Some Thoughts on Requirements

There is one question that I get routinely, from both those inside and outside the engineering industry: “What exactly does a systems engineer do?”

Three different psyche logos.

April 19, 2018 / Lindy Elkins-Tanton

Adventures in AcronymLand

In honor of Psyche mission’s PMSR, our first big review, I post here all the year’s tweets on NASA acronyms.

This photograph shows David Oh, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, and Dan Goebel holding small stuffed animals in front of a Psyche banner.

March 5, 2018 / Dan Goebel

What does a Chief Engineer do on NASA’s Psyche Mission… and how did I get this gig?

People have asked me what a Chief Engineer does. Here’s what I think they do (I hope the Psyche management team agrees), and also how I got to be one.

This image shows the Hall thruster, a donut-shaped ring glowing blue on a black background.

January 12, 2018 / Dan Goebel

Psyche is an SEP Mission…. What’s that mean?

I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say: “I’ve heard about the Psyche mission, but what does SEP mean?”

This photograph shows Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Thomas Zurbuchen, and Don Johanson standing in front of a lighted orb in the gallery of ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration.

January 3, 2018 / Lindy Elkins-Tanton

Happy Birthday Psyche: Year 1

We were selected for flight January 4, 2017…what have we been doing this year?

This image shows an imagined starry background with a football superimposed, along with Earth, the moon, and a comet. The football has the NASA logo on it.

October 23, 2017 / Lindy Elkins-Tanton

Is it Football or is it Rocket Science?

One August morning this year I got an email saying, “Did you hear President Crow challenged the football team to perform as well as Psyche team?” What?