The NASA Psyche Discovery Mission is currently cruising towards a rendezvous with the asteroid (16) Psyche, the largest M-class asteroid in the main asteroid belt [1]. The spacecraft instrument suite consists of a magnetometer, gamma ray and neutron spectrometers, multispectral imagers, and radio science experiments, all designed to unravel the history of (16) Psyche [2], [3]. The resulting data products generated by the mission (e.g., images; spectroscopic, magnetic, and gravity field data; shape models; geologic maps, etc.) will be delivered to the Small Bodies Node of the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) for long-term archiving [4]. The Psyche mission's Science Data Center (SDC), part of the JPL Psyche Mission System, is the point of contact for all data sharing and archiving activities. Here we describe the design and implementation of the SDC, which was guided by many factors: supporting mission requirements related to data warehousing; performing data dissemination and archiving; adhering to federal, NASA, and ASU cybersecurity guidelines; and following industry best practices. Given the long baseline of the mission (launch in October 2023 and arrival at the asteroid in mid-2029), the system needs to be easily maintainable and upgradable during the mission's lifetime. The SDC is located on the Tempe campus of ASU, with connections to the mission's Ground Data System at JPL and is available to the Psyche team via a web portal utilizing purpose-built tools. The SDC leverages heritage tools, concepts, and lessons learned from previous ASU instrument operations, such as for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Cameras on LRO, the Mastcam cameras on the Mars Science Laboratory rover, and the Mastcam-Z cameras on the Mars 2020 rover. We describe the heritage, principles, and requirements that guided the design and initial development of the Psyche Science Data Center, including real-world examples of the SDCs data portal, RESTful interface, in-house scripts, and early data products. The design of the SDC is centered around a relational database, with a schema to model the many files that are ingested and tracked, as well as their relationships to the PDS bundles being aggregated and delivered. The SDC disseminates data products to the Psyche Team for science investigations through a web-based portal, which also includes a RESTful interface that allows team members to upload, download and search data using in-house scripts. The three instrument teams make heavy use of the RESTful interface for uploading their PDS products. The web portal also makes mosaics and individual image products available to the team using Web Mapping Service technology. Most of the tools developed for the SDC are written in Python, using virtual environments to minimize the need to configure and maintain Python at the system level. These adhere to the UNIX philosophy of software development: make each program do one thing well, expect output (when generated) to become input to another tool, and test early and refactor as needed.

The Psyche spacecraft launched on October 13, 2023 to journey to the asteroid of the same name. Psyche is the largest M-class asteroid and possibly the remanent core of an early differentiated planetesimal that was disrupted by collisions. The Psyche mission will test that hypothesis as the 14th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program. An alternative hypothesis is that the asteroid is unmelted primordial material. We describe the proposal competition process leading to selection of the mission and its context with other small body missions. This paper will briefly introduce the three science instruments, gravity science investigation, and Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration, leading into a detailed explanation of the science mission architecture. The orbital science phase is divided into a series of circular mapping orbits at four distinct altitudes, each selected to address specific science objectives. The requirements and objectives for each orbit are accompanied by an assessment of the effectiveness of each phase. We discuss the structure of the Psyche team during the operations phase along with the roles and responsibilities of the science and flight operations teams. Key elements of mission operations that are unique to the Psyche mission are provided. The Science Data Center manages and archives the Psyche mission data. The contents of the archive data sets for each instrument are outlined as well as the interfaces between the Science Data Center, the instrument teams, and the Planetary Data System.

Using a newly developed 'holistic atmospheric model of the aerosol structure in Uranus's atmosphere, based upon observations made by Hubble Space Telescope (HST)/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), Gemini/Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer(NIFS), and NASA Infrared Telescope Facility(IRTF)/SpeX from 2000 to 2009, we make a new estimate of the bolometric Bond albedo of Uranus during this time of A* = 0.338 +/- 0.011, with a phase integral of q* = 1.36 +/- 0.03. Then, using a simple seasonal model, developed to be consistent with the disc-integrated blue and green magnitude data from the Lowell Observatory from 1950 to 2016, we model how Uranus's reflectivity and heat budget vary during its orbit and determine new orbital-mean average values for the bolometric Bond albedo of A=0.349 +/- 0.016 and for the absorbed solar flux of P-in = 0.604 +/- 0.027 W m(2). Assuming the outgoing thermal flux to be Poul0.693 +/- 0.013 W m(2), as previously determined from Voyager 2 observations, we arrive at a new estimate of Uranus's average heat flux budget of P-out/P-in 1.15 +/- 0.06, finding considerable variation with time due to Uranus's significant orbital eccentricity of 0.046. This leads the flux budget to vary from P-out/P-in 1.03 near perihelion, to 1.24 near aphelion. We conclude that although P-out/P-in is considerably smaller than for the other giant planets, Uranus is not in thermal equilibrium with the Sun

The NASA Psyche mission's program to engage university undergraduates and the public in the mission is inspired by and built upon the extensive foundation of public engagement, educational outreach activities, and expertise of NASA and mission partner institutions. The program leverages the enthusiasm and contributions of undergraduates nationwide to the benefit of the mission, the students and their institutions and communities, and the broader public. Psyche Student Collaborations consists of four main programs, two (Psyche Capstone and Psyche Inspired) are available solely to undergraduates enrolled at universities or community colleges in the United States and its territories and two (Innovation Toolkit free online courses and Science Outreach Interns and Docents) invite broader participation by engaging the talents and creativity of undergraduate interns to help create content and events to reach the public and lifelong learners. Together, these offerings provide multiple entry points and a spectrum of intensity of experiences, numbers of participants, disciplinary diversity, and mode of delivery. Involving undergraduates in all phases of the program supports the development of the next generation of explorers, contributes to the nation's workforce preparation, and complements NASA's existing undergraduate offerings by providing long-term opportunities for students to participate with the mission through established postsecondary education structures like capstone courses.

The Psyche mission’s Oxidation-Reduction Working Group is focused on understanding, determining, and applying the redox state of (16) Psyche to understand the origin of a metal-rich world. The oxidation-reduction state of an asteroid, along with its temperature, parent body size, and composition, is a key parameter in determining the history of an asteroid. Determining the redox state from spacecraft data is most easily done by examining potential metal-oxide buffer pairs. The occurrence of Ni, Fe, C, Cr, P and Si, in that order, in the metal or sulfide phase of an asteroidal body indicates increasingly reduced conditions. Key observations by the Imager and Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (GRNS) of Psyche can bracket the redox state using metal-oxide buffers. The presence of Fe,Ni metal can be confirmed by the ratios of Fe/O or Fe/Si and the concentration of Ni variability in metal across the asteroid can be determined by GRNS. The FeO concentration of silicates is complementary to the Ni concentration of metal and can be constrained using filters on the Imager. The presence of FeO in silicates from ground-based observations is one of the few measurements we already have of redox state, although available data permit a wide range of silicate compositions and mineralogies. The presence of C, P or Si concentrated in the metallic, Fe-rich portion of the asteroid, as measured by GRNS, or Ca-sulfide, determined by imaging, would indicate increasingly reducing conditions. Linkage to known types of meteorites, whether metal-rich chondrites, stony-irons or irons, expands the mineralogical, chemical and isotopic data not available from remote observations alone. Redox also controls both silicate and metal mineralogy, influencing differentiation, solidification, and subsolidus cooling, including the relative abundance of sulfur in the core and possible magnetic signatures. The redox state of Psyche, if a fully-differentiated metallic core, might constrain the location and timing of both the formation of Psyche and any oxidation it might have experienced.

The Psyche Mission is a mission to the asteroid “(16) Psyche”, featuring three science instruments and gravity science. (16) Psyche, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, will be the first potential metal world—instead of rock or ice—visited by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) managed mission will explore Psyche for 21 months after an earliest launch date of August 2022 and a 3.5 year cruise. In this paper, the End-to-End Information System’s (EEIS) concept, architecture, and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) standards implementation of Psyche are studied and analyzed for fulfilment of mission requirements and for satisfaction of operational constraints. The EEIS is a virtual system comprising distributed data system functions through the subsystems. The system is defined by how the flight, mission, and launch systems work together to enable Psyche’s data flows (uplink, downlink, spacecraft, and ground), as well as validate, account for, process, distribute, and store Psyche’s data. This data includes spacecraft commands, spacecraft health, and instrument science data. EEIS Engineers are specifically responsible for the concept formulation of the information system, its design architecture, as well as implementing the CCSDS standards in the flight to ground interface from a high-level project system engineering perspective. This includes evaluating the mission’s operational constraints and requirements, as well as inherited mission infrastructure. Criteria for evaluating mission information include the quantity, quality, latency, and continuity (QQCL) of the data. In this paper, the Psyche EEIS will be evaluated in relation to these four criteria. Thus, this paper focuses on: the driving EEIS design requirements based on program, project, science, and operability requirements; the views and analysis of the EEIS conceptual design; the CCSDS standards implementation; and the EEIS layered architecture comprising its data flows, flight assets, mission operations system (MOS), ground/science data systems (SDS), and multi-mission services. The possible advantages and limitations of the Psyche EEIS architecture and suggestions for future space missions are also discussed.

Accurate measurements of ambient planetary and interplanetary magnetic fields using spacecraft magnetometers typically require accounting for interfering magnetic fields generated by the flight system (FS). The most common method for removing FS-generated time-variable magnetic fields is narrow-band and low-pass filtering of magnetic field data in the frequency domain. However, if fluctuations in the ambient field contain frequencies overlapping those in the FS field, it can be difficult to construct a filter that will not affect both signals. Here we present an alternate method for removing FS time-variable signatures from magnetic field measurements. For spacecraft that make use of a magnetic gradiometer (i.e. with two or more instruments on a boom at different distances from the center of the spacecraft), the dominant frequencies in the FS field can be identified using spectra of the differenced field components. The amplitudes of the FS field at those frequencies can then be suppressed without removing spectral peaks present in the ambient field. We demonstrate the successful application of this method, referred to as gradiometry peak suppression, both to modeled data sets and to 128 Hz Venus Express magnetometer data.

Bercovici, B.G. Bills, R.P. Binzel, W.F. Bottke, J. Goldsten, R. Jaumann, I. Jun, D.J. Lawrence, S. Marchi, D. Oh, R. Park, P.N. Peplowski, C.A. Polanskey, T.H. Prettyman, C.A. Raymond, C.T. Russell, A. Scheinberg, B.P. Weiss, D.D. Wenkert, M. Wieczorek, M.T. Zuber, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, 781 Terrace Rd., Tempe AZ 85287, ltelkins@asu.edu, ASU, Yale, JPL, MIT, SwRI, APL, DLR, IPGP, PSI, UCLA.