Overview
- The Psyche spacecraft flew within about 2,864 miles (4,609 km) of Mars on May 15 and received a roughly 1,000 mile‑per‑hour velocity boost plus an orbital‑plane tilt of about 1 degree that put it on a direct intercept trajectory to asteroid 16 Psyche.
- NASA’s Deep Space Network tracked the flyby in real time and confirmed the planned trajectory change, and the spacecraft has resumed using its solar‑electric (ion) propulsion to continue toward an expected August 2029 arrival.
- Psyche’s multispectral imager took thousands of photos including rare crescent views, shots of the southern highlands and Huygens crater, and polar terrain that teams will use to calibrate cameras and test image‑processing tools for the asteroid campaign.
- Mission scientists powered up magnetometers and a gamma‑ray/neutron spectrometer during the pass; early magnetometer readings may show Mars’ bow shock and the spectroscopy data will be compared with decades of Mars records as teams process the calibration dataset.
- The mission, led by Arizona State University with JPL operations, aims to map and measure the metal‑rich 16 Psyche over more than two years in orbit to test whether it is an exposed planetary core and to improve understanding of how rocky planets form.