Everybody was so ready to see this thing go to space.
- I showed up at the mission support area and, of course,
it’s buzzing with activity and everyone's feeling good.
- It was maybe a good thing that everybody was pouring
all of their anxious energy into tiny problems. People checking,
rechecking, making sure that all of the things that kept them up
at night they managed to address.
- It was like coming a little bit out of a dream
just thinking about all the little details. - Eight,
Seven, Six, Five, Four...
- Right when it launches, you get the big picture - Three, Two
just washing over you. - One, Engine ignition.
- It is the most astonishing show of power,
and I could not almost believe what I was seeing.
- I mean, by the time you’re looking up at this thing,
it’s like you can just feel every, every ripple of the engine.
You feel it just kind of cascade through your chest.
I mean, it’s, it, it's the most amazing feeling.
- And there go the fairings,
revealing Psyche to the atmosphere.
- We had this beautiful video feed, and we could see as it
just started to drift away. Ah, and it was perfect.
No spin, no tumble anything, just slowly moving away from
the launch vehicle.
We thought it could be hours before we heard
from the spacecraft. Basically, as soon as it turned on its
radios we got that signal and we actually had data
from the spacecraft for
the duration of the solar array deployment.
So, we could really confirm that that was working.
- The turn on of the instruments has gone extremely well.
- The magnetometer, the gamma-ray spectrometer,
the neutron spectrometer,
the imagers,
the gravity experiment we know is going to be successful.
We’ve turned on our electric propulsion,
first use of haul thrusters outside of the Earth-Moon system,
and even our technology demonstration,
the deep space optical comms doing laser communication.
- I think we've downloaded data now at 260 mega bits per second.
Way, way faster than anything
that’s been downloaded from space before.
- The next big thing that I'm really looking forward to is
the Mars flyby. I want to see what we can do with
the instruments or what the instruments can tell us
about Mars. And that'll be the first time that, you know,
we fill the field of view of the cameras with something illuminated.
So, I think that that'll be a really exciting moment.
- In my heart, what I really would love for it to be
is that ours was a mission that ignited in so many people
the thrill of wanting to see the unknown.
My gosh, wait till we get there.