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NASA’s Psyche Starts Its Long Electric Push Toward a Metal-Rich Asteroid

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Tech & Science / Deep-space engineering NASA’s Psyche: the electric push A solar array deployed during testing at JPL in February 2022. Archival photograph; not an in-flight view. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Image source · NASA media guidelines . Sunlight, xenon and time. The long road to a metal-rich world. NEWJIN MEDIA · October 24, 2026 AI-assisted reporting and analysis of official public records. No on-site reporting. Photographs are archival. The October update A new way of cruising, not a new launch Psyche is thrusting toward its asteroid after a Mars flyby. Its small electric push, solar power limits and science instruments explain the journey. The most important change in NASA’s October 22 update is a change in operating rhythm. After years of intermittent electric propulsion and a gravity assist at Mars, the Psyche spacecraft began nearly continuous thrusting on September 28. It is now using the long stretch of interplanetary travel to accumulate a change in velocity that no ...

NASA’s CASALS Takes Aim at the Gaps in Earth’s 3D Maps

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Tech & Science / Earth observation NASA’s CASALS looks between the laser tracks. A new way to scan the forest’s third dimension, and the work still ahead before orbit. Jeffrey Chen tests a lidar prototype at Goddard. NASA published this archival photograph with its 2024 CASALS award report. Photo: NASA · NASA editorial-use terms . NASA’s CASALS uses wavelength-steered lidar to scan terrain, but its airborne results are not yet a space mission. The news / October 21, 2026 A new instrument, not a new satellite The empty spaces on a scientific map can be easy to miss. A satellite may take remarkably precise measurements along its path while leaving much of the landscape between those paths unmeasured. NASA’s latest update on CASALS addresses that difference: the instrument is being developed to measure a continuous strip of forest and terrain, rather than collect only separated profiles that scientists must connect with other observations and models. In an October 21 technology rep...

NASA’s Roman Telescope Beats Its Optical Target. What 63 Nanometers Means.

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Tech & Science · Space instruments · October 21, 2026 Roman’s sharper eye. What 63 nanometers means. Roman’s optics reached 63 nanometers RMS error. Here is what the result means for calibration, wide-field surveys, and coronagraph tests. 63 nm RMS optical error after corrections 18 detectors in the wide-field camera 2 instruments with different jobs Roman’s primary mirror and deployed visor during ground inspection in May 2026. NASA/Sydney Rohde . By NEWJIN MEDIA · Analysis of NASA mission reports and instrument documentation · October 21, 2026 01 / The measurement The important number is 63 nanometers Roman’s optics reached 63 nanometers RMS error. Here is what the result means for calibration, wide-field surveys, and coronagraph tests. In an October 14 commissioning update, NASA reported that Roman’s Wide Field Instrument had reached an optical error of 63 nanometers RMS after alignment corrections, against an image-quality requirement of about 90 nanometers RMS. NASA described...

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