Psyche - Pedal to the Metal: NASA’s Psyche Heads Toward Asteroid Belt

As depicted in this artist’s concept, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will approach the metal-rich asteroid Psyche in summer 2029 using its solar electric propulsion system, powered by large cross-shaped solar arrays.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

With a successful Mars gravity assist in its rearview mirror, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has fired up its thrusters and is accelerating to the metal-rich asteroid of the same name. During the first leg of its journey, following an October 2023 launch, the mission used its electric propulsion system intermittently to maneuver to the right place for harnessing Mars’ gravity for a propellant-saving speed boost and a slight trajectory change.

On Sept. 28, the spacecraft began to use its propulsion system nearly continuously, pausing just once each week to check in with mission controllers on Earth. This keeps the mission on track for its rendezvous with the asteroid Psyche in the main asteroid belt by the summer of 2029.

“It’s now ‘pedal to the metal’ to the asteroid Psyche,” said Don Han, the Psyche mission’s navigation lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which is managed for the agency by Caltech. “We will be running our propulsion system at every available opportunity, pausing only for necessary engineering activities. The thrusters will be operating nearly 90% of the time from now until we reach the asteroid.”

Xenon propellant efficiency

Where conventional spacecraft thrusters rely on large quantities of fuel to provide powerful bursts of thrust for relatively short periods of time, the Psyche spacecraft’s solar-powered propulsion system uses electromagnetic fields to steadily deliver up to 250 millinewtons of force — about the amount of force that you would feel from the weight of holding one AA battery.

The highly efficient system relies on a mechanism known as the Hall effect, in which charged atoms, or ions, of the inert gas xenon are expelled to create thrust — and a bright blue glow.

A Hall thruster identical to those on NASA’s Psyche operates in a vacuum chamber at JPL during tests before the mission launched in 2023. The blue light is generated by xenon ions being accelerated through an electromagnetic field, which gives the spacecraft a gentle but steady acceleration.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Each of the four thrusters operates one at a time. Though the thrust is tiny, it builds up over the course of the journey, enabling the spacecraft to gain speed as it travels through interplanetary space. At its maximum speed during cruise, the Psyche spacecraft will be traveling more than 100,000 mph (160,900 kph) relative to an observer on Earth.

The spacecraft uses its two five-panel, cross-shaped solar arrays — with a sunlight-collecting area of 800 square feet (75 square meters) — to generate electricity to charge its batteries and power its systems, including the propulsion system. The spacecraft launched with nearly 2,400 pounds (1,090 kilograms) of xenon in seven fuel tanks. In the three years since launch, it has used about one third of that supply, leaving plenty to reach its target and assist the spacecraft as it orbits the asteroid Psyche during a two-year prime science mission.

“There are some unique things that mission designers need to consider with a propulsion system that is powered by the Sun,” said Steve Snyder, the Psyche mission’s lead engineer for propulsion operations at JPL. “For the next three months, we’ll be thrusting at full power before we begin slowly throttling down to approximately half power as the spacecraft moves farther away and its solar arrays receive less sunlight and generate less power.”

Psyche swirl torque

Another consideration for mission designers: Despite how gentle the Hall-effect thrusters are, using them requires consistent management throughout cruise. As the thrusters expel xenon ions, the magnetic field generated causes the ions to swirl. These swirling ions can create a slight torque, or twisting force, that if left unchecked would interfere with the spacecraft’s pointing.

To compensate for the torque and absorb the excess angular momentum it generates, the Psyche spacecraft relies on reaction wheels to change their spin rate. After several hours, engineers command the spacecraft to turn off its thruster, rotate, and then run a different thruster at low power in a different direction for several minutes to remove the momentum that built up in the reaction wheels.

“For a propulsion engineer, it’s a fun thing that you can only measure this torque in space and not on Earth, as it’s so small,” said Snyder. “In fact, this is the first time anyone has been able to measure this effect on a Hall thruster as a function of power level and of operating time, and for such a long duration in space. The Psyche spacecraft is an excellent laboratory to test it.”

Cruising with confidence

When it arrives in 2029, the spacecraft will insert itself into orbit around the asteroid Psyche, which is thought to be the partial core of a planetesimal, a building block of an early planet. The spacecraft will map the asteroid and gather science data during a series of orbits that go lower and then higher in altitude around Psyche, which is about 173 miles (280 kilometers) across at its widest point.

If the asteroid proves to be an ancient planetesimal’s metallic core, it could offer a one-of-a-kind window into the interior of rocky planets like Earth.

“The Mars flyby was an incredible opportunity for the team to calibrate instruments and practice procedures for a planetary encounter ahead of arriving at the asteroid Psyche,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator for the Psyche mission at the University of California, Berkeley. “Now we are cruising with confidence deeper into the solar system, powered by sunlight, ready to explore a mysterious new world in the asteroid belt.” 

NASA Science Editorial Team

Source: Pedal to the Metal: NASA’s Psyche Heads Toward Asteroid Belt - NASA Science 

Vitamin C and Pre-Cancerous Blood Disorders: What a New Phase 2 Trial Found

Vitamin C is one of the most familiar nutrients there is. It supports immune function, helps wounds heal and protects cells from molecular damage. It also turns out that many people with pre-cancerous blood disorders and blood cancers have chronically low levels of it, which raises an obvious question: could restoring those levels improve outcomes?

A new phase 2 clinical trial, called EVITA, offers an early and carefully qualified answer. The results were published on September 21, 2026 in CANCER, the American Cancer Society journal, by a team led by the Van Andel Institute-Stand Up To Cancer Epigenetics Dream Team.

Who was studied, and how

The trial enrolled 109 people with clonal cytopenia of undetermined significance (CCUS) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Both are blood disorders that can progress into acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a cancer that is hard to treat. The risk of CCUS and similar conditions rises with age. There are no approved therapies that prevent CCUS from progressing to leukemia, and while MDS can be treated with a stem cell transplant, many older adults have other health conditions that rule it out. At the time of the trial, none of the participants were receiving cancer treatment.

Participants were randomly assigned to take either 1,000 mg of oral vitamin C daily for a year or a placebo identical in look, taste and smell. The trial was double-blind, so neither participants nor trial staff knew who was in which group until the end. That design is considered the gold standard because it limits bias. Trial sites were in Denmark (Copenhagen University Hospital-Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital-Herlev and Aalborg University Hospital) and the United States (Keck Hospital of the University of Southern California).

Two details make this trial unusual. It is the first double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of oral vitamin C in pre-leukemia conditions and lower-risk myeloid cancers. And earlier trials generally gave vitamin C intravenously and focused on solid tumors, whereas EVITA used an oral dose comparable to many over-the-counter supplements.

What the researchers found

·         Vitamin C levels normalized. More than half of participants were vitamin C-deficient at the start. In the vitamin C group, blood levels returned to normal after supplementation began.

·         Fewer adverse events. People taking vitamin C had fewer adverse events during the trial and follow-up period.

·         Inflammatory signals shifted. Vitamin C changed the levels of cytokines, which are inflammatory signaling molecules, in directions associated with better outcomes. This suggests it may help regulate inflammatory pathways linked to the growth and progression of pre-cancerous blood cells.

·         No difference in clone growth. The two groups did not differ significantly in the growth rate of abnormal blood cells, a common measure of progression toward leukemia.

·         A survival signal, with a caveat. In an exploratory analysis, people who took vitamin C were significantly more likely to be alive after roughly three years of follow-up than those who received the placebo.

Why vitamin C? The TET2 connection

Scientists have explored vitamin C in cancer for more than 70 years, but inconclusive results and differences in study methods left its role unclear. Over the past decade, advances in technology revealed that vitamin C is an essential partner of TET2, an enzyme that helps suppress cancer cell growth by regulating whether certain genes are switched on or off. Mutations in TET2 are a common feature of leukemia and related disorders.

Later studies in cancer models found that vitamin C appeared to prevent cancer-related cellular changes and slow leukemia progression, with the greatest benefit when supplementation started before the disease was established. That timing is central to the idea of cancer interception: intervening before a cancer takes hold. A 2016 pilot study showed that oral supplementation could raise vitamin C levels in the blood, and the EVITA trial began in 2017.

How to read these results

The survival finding is the headline, but it came from an exploratory analysis in a trial of 109 people. Exploratory analyses are generally used to generate hypotheses rather than to confirm them, and the researchers themselves say a larger phase 3 trial is needed. The measure of abnormal cell growth, the more standard marker of progression, showed no significant difference between groups. The lead investigator, Dr. Kirsten Grønbæk, said it is too early to make definitive recommendations based on the results.

In practical terms, these results are a reason to run a bigger trial, not a reason for anyone with CCUS or MDS to start high-dose supplements on their own. Anyone with one of these diagnoses should discuss vitamin C with their hematologist.

What comes next

Additional analysis of the trial data is ongoing, focused on the biological mechanisms that might explain the survival difference. The team is also studying how vitamin C interacts with pre-cancerous cells, including the idea that it may help restore normal epigenetic function in blood cells at risk of becoming leukemia.

This post is a summary based on the Van Andel Institute press release. For full methods, statistics and limitations, see the original paper.

Sources

·         Press release: Phase 2 trial suggests vitamin C may benefit people with pre-cancer blood disorders (Van Andel Institute, September 21, 2026)

·         Original paper: EVITA phase 2 trial, CANCER (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.70549)

Source: Vitamin C and Pre-Cancerous Blood Disorders: What a New Phase 2 Trial Found