Nickel Accounting for the Psyche Spacecraft

(16) Psyche is a metallic asteroid located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The composition of Psyche is unknown, but the scientific community believes it is composed primarily of iron, nickel, and silicates. The Psyche mission will be the first space mission to study this asteroid in close proximity, and as such, determining the elemental composition of the asteroid is one of the primary objectives of this mission. The spacecraft measures this elemental composition using the Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS), which detects cosmic-ray induced gamma rays from Psyche's surface. In addition to gamma rays from Psyche, the GRS will also detect background gamma rays from spacecraft material nearby the GRS. Because understanding the asteroid's Ni composition is a key to achieving the mission science objectives, a special effort has been made to minimize background gamma rays from Ni on spacecraft material, thus maximizing sensitivity to the Ni gamma rays from Psyche. The Psyche mission approached this potential Ni background issue with two methods; i) locating the GRS away from the spacecraft/source of Ni and ii) setting a threshold requirement against the total Ni mass of the spacecraft. Verifying that the total amount of Ni on the spacecraft is within this threshold is thus crucial to ensure the GRS can meet its science objectives. Ni alloys are commonly used on spacecraft, but the mass and location of elemental Ni is not typically accounted for. Ni can be found in many materials all over the spacecraft-in fasteners, optical assemblies, magnetic shields, electromagnetic interference (EMI) tape, under gold plating, in connectors, and so on. Ni accounting proved further challenging because of the distributed nature of the spacecraft build and the use of vendors external to JPL. While the analysis was atypical and source information difficult to cull, the approach described in this paper used tools and data available to the project in some form to achieve this goal. For Psyche, current analysis shows there is margin in meeting the Ni mass requirement. This paper explains the systematic approach used to accurately and precisely record Ni content on the Psyche spacecraft. While this approach was defined explicitly for Ni on the Psyche mission, it can be broadly applied to any future project with the need to accurately estimate the total mass of a single element or material on a spacecraft.