IMAGEPsyche asteroid explorer arrives at Kennedy Space Center for launch prepsA U.S. military cargo plane delivered NASA’s Psyche spacecraft from California to the Kennedy Space Center last week, starting a three-month campaign to ready the asteroid explorer for liftoff on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in August. The launch preparations at Kennedy will include loading of more than a ton of xenon gas into the Psyche spacecraft, followed by encapsulation of the probe inside SpaceX’s payload fairing before rolling out to pad 39A for integration with a Falcon Heavy launcher. “Shipping to the launch site feels like the home stretch is kind of coming, and it certainly feels that way on Psyche,” said Brian Bone, the lead engineer on Psyche’s assembly, test, and launch operations team. The xenon will fuel the spacecraft’s electric propulsion system, a set of four high-efficiency electric thrusters to guide Psyche from Earth to its namesake asteroid destination. The robotic mission will reach the asteroid Psyche in January 2026, then enter a series of orbits at different
