Planning and Executing Psyche's First Post-Launch Flight Software Update

Flight software updates (FSWU) are amongst the riskiest activities a mission executes during operations. The Psyche mission, which launched on October 13, 2023, to study the largest metal asteroid in the main asteroid belt, (16) Psyche, successfully executed its first FSWU over a two-week period starting on April 29, 2024. This paper will discuss the planning and execution of this critical activity. Planning this activity required coordination between multiple teams and included identifying the optimal window for execution, conducting several trade studies, developing the overall design and on-console procedure, completing an exhaustive test program, and preparing several reviews to solicit feedback. Execution of this activity required preparing and training the team, developing the staffing plan, implementing the update on the spacecraft, which involved an intentional entry into safe mode, and successfully recovering from the safe mode entry. Throughout this process, lessons from previous missions were applied and new lessons were learned, which along with the challenges encountered by Psyche, will also be shared in this paper.