NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is using a daring close flyby of Mars to slingshot toward one of the solar system’s strangest asteroids.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is preparing for a close flyby of Mars that will help propel it farther into the solar system on its journey to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. On Friday, May 15, the spacecraft will sweep just 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) above the Martian surface while traveling about 12,333 mph (19,848 kph). During the encounter, the spacecraft will use Mars’ gravity to increase its speed and redirect its path toward one of the solar system’s most unusual asteroids.
Launched on October 13, 2023, Psyche relies on solar-electric propulsion and xenon gas to gradually build speed over its long mission. By using a gravity assist from Mars, mission planners can conserve propellant while still giving the spacecraft the boost it needs. These planetary flybys also allow engineers and scientists to test systems and fine-tune scientific instruments before the spacecraft reaches its final destination.
Psyche Spacecraft Will Study Mars During Flyby
During the flyby, Psyche’s operations team plans to use the spacecraft’s multispectral imager to gather thousands of observations of Mars. The images and data collected during the encounter will help the team improve techniques needed when Psyche begins orbiting the asteroid in late 2029.
The spacecraft has already started sending back images ahead of the encounter. Beginning on May 7, the mission released the first unprocessed, or “raw,” images showing a distant starfield with Mars appearing as a tiny point of light. Engineers will later process the flyby images by adjusting brightness and contrast, and they hope to create a time-lapse sequence of the event in the coming weeks.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will pass about 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) from the Martian surface at 12,328 mph (19,840 kph) on May 15, 2026. The Red Planet will provide a crucial gravity assist, enabling the spacecraft to reach its namesake destination in the main asteroid belt.
To prepare for the maneuver, the mission team carried out a trajectory correction maneuver on February 23. During the operation, Psyche fired its thrusters for 12 hours to refine its approach and slightly increase its speed before arriving at Mars.
“We are now exactly on target for the flyby, and we’ve programmed the flight computer with everything that the spacecraft will do throughout May,” said Sarah Bairstow, Psyche’s mission planning lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission. “This is our first opportunity in flight to calibrate Psyche’s imager with something bigger than a few pixels, and we’ll also make observations with the mission’s other science instruments.”
Rare Crescent Views of Mars
Mars will not appear as the familiar fully illuminated red disk often seen in photographs. Because Psyche is approaching from the night side of the planet, the spacecraft will initially see only a narrow crescent of sunlight across Mars.
“We are approaching Mars at a very high phase angle, which means we are catching up with the planet from its night side with only a sliver of sunlight creating a thin crescent,” said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University in Tempe. “The thin crescent on approach and the nearly ‘full Mars’ view after we fly past create opportunities for the imaging team for both great calibration observations as well as just plain beautiful photos.”
Scientists are also interested in the possibility that Mars may have a faint dusty ring, or torus, around the planet. Researchers believe tiny impacts on Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos, may send dust particles into space. Depending on the angle of sunlight during the flyby, some of that dust could become visible in Psyche’s processed observations.
The spacecraft’s imager will also conduct “satellite search” observations around Mars as practice for searching for possible moonlets orbiting the asteroid Psyche later in the mission. Other instruments aboard the spacecraft may gather valuable data as well. Psyche’s magnetometer could observe Mars’ magnetic field interacting with charged particles from the Sun, while the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer will track changes in cosmic rays (highly energetic subatomic particles from interstellar space) during the flyby.
“Ultimately, though, the only reason for this flyby is to get a little help from Mars to speed us up and tilt our trajectory in the direction of the asteroid Psyche,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator for Psyche at the University of California, Berkeley. “But if all our instruments are powered up, and we can do important testing and calibration of the science instruments, that would be the icing on the cake.”
NASA Tracks Psyche During Gravity Assist
Mission controllers will monitor radio signals sent between Psyche and NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) to confirm the flyby’s success. Any changes in the spacecraft’s speed will appear in the Doppler shift of those signals, allowing engineers to quickly determine Psyche’s updated trajectory as it leaves Mars and continues toward the asteroid belt.
Several spacecraft already operating at Mars will support the event. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey orbiter, Curiosity rover, and Perseverance rover will contribute observations and navigation data. ESA’s (European Space Agency) Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter will also participate during the flyby.
By comparing Psyche’s observations with data from the Mars missions, scientists will be able to better calibrate the spacecraft’s instruments. Coordinated communications through the DSN could also improve planning for future missions approaching Mars.
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