NASA’s Psyche mission launched on October 13, 2023, and is now in cruise to the asteroid belt. The goal is to study an unusual asteroid called (16) Psyche, which is hypothesized to be the remnant core of a failed planetesimal. The mission will study this asteroid using a suite of scientific instrumentation including: A multi spectral imager sensitive in the visible and near IR; a fluxgate magnetometer with a two sensors; radio science for measuring the asteroid’s gravitational moments; and a Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (GRNS) consisting of three 3He-tubes for neutron spectroscopy and a high-resolution, germanium-based detector for gamma-ray spectroscopy. This talk will focus on the gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) which will measure the gamma-ray flux from the asteroid and allow for the determination of the elemental composition of the surface. The GRS is sensitive to nearly any element on the surface of Psyche having concentration of a few percent or higher, with iron and nickel being the highest priority due to their key role in planetary core formation. The spacecraft arrives at (16) Psyche in 2029 but early measurements by the GRS in cruise are already shedding light on its performance regarding: resolution, sensitivity to key iron and nickel gamma-ray lines, robustness with respect to large Solar events, and robustness with respect to radiation damage from galactic cosmic rays.
Dr. Morgan Burks is a physicist at LLNL specializing in instrumentation for gamma-ray spectroscopy and gamma-ray imaging. His focus is cryogenically-cooled germanium-based detectors for space and terrestrial applications. Notable accomplishments include helping design the first germanium spectrometer in deep space, which flew on NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft to the planet Mercury. He led the development of GeMini, an ultra-light weight, low-power germanium spectrometer for national security applications. Current projects include sensor development on two NASA deep-space planetary missions. This includes Psyche, which launched in 2023 and is in cruise to the asteroid belt, and Dragonfly, which will land on Saturn’s moon Titan. He also led sensor development of the gamma-ray spectrometer for JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission which will land on the moons of Mars.