280 Planetary Exploration and Education: How We Learn About Our Solar System and Beyond

This session links how we teach and learn about the solar system to how we have gained that information (i.e., space missions). Descriptions of teaching activities/courses, and strategies for working with students are encouraged.

Wednesday, 22 October 2025
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
HBGCC, 214B

NASA’s Psyche Mission: Education through Exploration of a Metal World

Paper number: 280-1
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 1:35 PM – 1:50 PM

Authors

Abstract

NASA’s Psyche mission is a Discovery-class robotic planetary mission designed to travel to and orbit Main Belt asteroid (16) Psyche, the largest M-type (metallic) asteroid in the Solar System. Launched on October 13, 2023, the spacecraft is now cruising through the Solar System and will flyby Mars for a gravity assist in May 2026 and arrive at asteroid Psyche in August 2029. Since the mission began development in January 2017, the Psyche project has included an extensive and broad portfolio of undergraduate student collaboration and community outreach activities, which we will describe in this presentation. In addition to undergraduate interns at Arizona State University that help with semester-based outreach activities to the public, the Psyche project supports workforce development and lifelong learning through student collaboration activities including 1) free online public courses, 2) senior design/capstone projects in collaboration with other U.S. universities, and 3) Psyche Inspired, which enables student creatives throughout the United States to produce  artistic projects inspired by the Psyche mission. The “Innovation Toolkit” online courses, which have enrolled over 5,600 participants, are freely available to the public and include subjects such as “Process and Lifetime of a Space Mission” and “Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites”. To date, the Psyche capstone and Psyche Inspired programs have worked closely with more than 2,200 undergraduates at 77 US colleges and universities. With Psyche capstone projects, undergraduate seniors in engineering, science, graphic design, and communications design and produce materials and instruments to support the exploration of asteroid Psyche, from science-based video games to future surface mission concepts and hardware. In Psyche Inspired, undergraduates in a variety of majors from aerospace and mechanical engineering to music and new media create share mission-based art through virtual galleries and physical artifacts that are displayed by museums and libraries around the country. Through offering multiple entry points and a range of intensity of experience and interaction with the Psyche team, disciplinary range, and mode of delivery, Psyche Student Collaborations supports NASA’s goals of workforce development, community engagement, and lifelong learning.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-412067

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