Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

Episode 307, Psychie. I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today. On this podcast,

we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts, all to let you know what's going on

in the world of human spaceflight, but let's be real, space is too cool to limit ourselves.

On this episode, we're going to be talking about an upcoming and uncrewed solar system

exploration mission called Psychie. Its mission is to visit an asteroid of the same name,

one that's orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, named by Italian astronomer

Annabella de Gasperi in 1852 after the Greek goddess of the soul. What makes this asteroid

particularly interesting is that it is metal rich. And scientists believe that this asteroid

is the partial core of a shattered planetesimal or a small world about the size of a city or a

small country that is the first building block of a planet. This means that observing this asteroid

can offer us a unique window into how planets are formed. Aside from the asteroid's discovery

in the 19th century, astronomers have also studied Psychie invisible and infrared wavelengths,

but this up close and personal opportunity with the Psychie spacecraft delivering new scientific

instruments may give us the answers we seek. Not only is the science of this mission fascinating

by itself, but Psychie will be using technologies like solar electric propulsion and deep space laser

communications technologies of particular interest to Artemis missions. To help us digest the

science and technology behind the Psychie mission is Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the mission's principal

investigator out of Arizona State University. Lindy is a professor in the School of Earth and Space

Exploration at ASU and the Vice President of the ASU Interplanetary Initiative. Her education is

in geology, geochemistry, and geophysics, receiving a bachelor's master's and doctorate in these

respective fields from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lindy's experience is extensive,

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