NASA Shelves One Of Its Most Exciting Missions After Delay
NASA has announced that its Janus asteroid mission will officially be shut down, according to a write-up in Space.com. The mission would have seen a pair of space probes titled Serenity and Mayhem launched into space in order to visit asteroids and collect data samples, though NASA has chosen to shelve the probes after launch delays reportedly rendered them inoperable. The Janus probes will now remain in storage, completed, until conditions for their use arise again in the future.
The NASA Janus project to explore asteroids is being shelved.
NASA’s larger spacecraft, the Psyche, was launched on top of a SpaceX rocket last Summer, when the Janus probes were originally slated to hit orbit.
Unfortunately, the delay between Psyche’s launch and the projected Serenity and Mayhem launch created unplanned issues within the flight software of the probes, rendering their targeting systems unable to function.
While the NASA engineers and scientists behind Psyche were able to get the craft functioning, the Janus team had no such luck, with their projected targets leaving reach during the 14-month delay period.
NASA’s Janus project is just one of a larger web of complex space faring projects under the umbrella of SIMPLEx or Small, Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration
The initial Janus targets were two binary asteroid systems, relatively close to the Earth, though the point of entry which NASA scientists planned to utilize will no longer be accessible by the time the probes would be prepared for launch this coming October.
This is deeply unfortunate as recent scientific discoveries have led many NASA scientists to believe that there could be accessible water or gemstones on a number of passing asteroids, which the Janus probes could have confirmed.
Of course, NASA officials are holding out hope that terrestrial conditions clear up to allow us to utilize the probes in the future, with a rep stating to the press that more resources will become available in the next several years.
The Psyche craft is set to reach its final destination in August of 2029, so long as there are no further hiccups in development.
NASA’s Janus project is just one of a larger web of complex space faring projects under the umbrella of SIMPLEx. SIMPLEx stands for Small, Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration, proving that NASA scientists are as interested in clunky acronym creation as the in-universe military leads in Marvel comics are.
Though SIMPLEx initially aimed to derive new scientific information from asteroids across our solar system, the project’s ultimate goal is to launch a rocket ride-sharing program, which will allow NASA to quickly and easily send payloads into orbit on a semi-regular basis.
For instance, if the goals of SIMPLEx had been reached by last Summer, it would have been perfectly simple for NASA to send the Psyche spacecraft, which has a mass of over 3,000 pounds, into the orbit, with each 79 pound Janus probe in tow. The system would also allow for a number of low-cost technical platforms to take shape, in order to prevent larger projects from eating into the overall budget.
The Psyche craft is set to reach its final destination in August of 2029, so long as there are no further hiccups in development. Meanwhile, the NASA Janus probes will collect dust in a storage facility. Of course, the project wasn’t a complete loss, as there are still plenty of complex engineering systems at play, allowing the machines to become usable again at a moment’s notice should the need arise.
