Africa-Press – Mauritius. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California has done an “outstanding” job in correcting the staffing shortages and problems that imposed years of delay on its Psyche mission to a nickel-iron asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, US space agency officials said in a press release.
“Steps taken by NASA, the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, and Caltech, to put the Psyche mission on track for an October 2023 launch have been outstanding, according to an independently appointed review board.
NASA and JPL convened the board last summer after the Psyche mission team requested to delay the spacecraft’s August 2022 launch to a metal-rich asteroid of the same name,” the release said on Monday. The Independent Review Board (IRB) led by retired aerospace executive A.
Thomas Young concluded in its initial report that JPL workforce issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the launch delay but other problems including insufficient staffing and lack of experience among those working on the project, along with failures in management communication and oversight made the delays worse, NASA said. The report also noted improvements to senior management’s oversight of the mission, NASA said.
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