Remember #MissionToPsyche — the journey to the metal-rich asteroid of the same name, led and monitored by a team of scientists and engineers at ASU and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory? Well, the Psyche spacecraft, which is about the size and weight of a large SUV, just passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and there’s no holding back now. Equipped with tennis court-sized solar panels that power the system, the spacecraft was launched via the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The journey to Psyche will take nearly six years — orbiting the asteroid repeatedly starting from 435 miles out and then going down to 46 miles from the surface, and once it arrives in August 2029, the probe will spend 26 months mapping the geology, topography and gravity. The missiontopsyche team is staying in regular contact with Psyche using NASA’s Deep Space Network, a system or large radio antennas. Currently, navigators are firing its futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which a emit a bl...