Psyche mission team members prepare the spacecraft at a facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in late July, just after the solar arrays were folded and stowed.NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities ahead of the launch of NASA’sspacecraft. The Psyche spacecraft will travel about 2.2 billion miles to study a metal-rich asteroid of the same name.
Psyche is targeting liftoff at 10:16 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 12, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft also is hosting a technology demonstration, NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications , which will be the first test of laser communications beyond the Moon.to attend the launch virtually.