Mars like you've never seen it: breathtaking flyover will leave you speechless
NASA's Psyche spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Mars, using the planet's gravity for a speed boost while testing its onboard scientific instruments. The mission aims to study the asteroid 16 Psyche to determine if it is the exposed core of a failed protoplanet.
Why it matters
This mission provides critical data on the formation of the solar system and the internal composition of planetary bodies.
The Mars flyby served two distinct purposes. Mars’s gravity gave the spacecraft a helpful speed boost. At the same time, the pass let engineers test Psyche’s instruments on a real planetary target.
“The mission’s imager, magnetometer, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer teams worked overtime to make full use of this planetary encounter, and all instruments delivered great results.”
— Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche’s principal investigator at Arizona State University.
She noted that big discoveries were unlikely given how thoroughly Mars has been studied. Even so, the flyby provided useful complementary data from a unique viewpoint.
During the pass, Psyche tested three primary scientific instruments:
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