NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is continuing its journey toward the asteroid belt after receiving a gravity assist from Mars in May, and the space agency has now shared striking imagery from that brief encounter. The spacecraft captured thousands of images using its multispectral imager as it approached and flew past Mars, and NASA released a timelapse video stitching these images together into a continuous view of the entire flyby, showing the crescent shape of Mars upon arrival, detailed views of the planet’s surface, and its icy south pole as the spacecraft departed.
Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University, said the imager performed exceptionally well during the encounter, delivering views of Mars that are rarely captured from this vantage point. The spacecraft began its approach to Mars on May 2 and made its closest approach on May 15, coming within roughly 4,500 kilometers of the planet’s surface during the maneuver.
The flyby served a specific technical purpose beyond capturing imagery, giving Psyche a speed boost and adjusting its trajectory to put it on course for the metal rich asteroid it is named after, all while conserving propellant needed for the remainder of its journey. The spacecraft is expected to reach the asteroid Psyche, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, in 2029, where it will spend an extended period orbiting and studying the body to better understand the composition of planetary cores.
Bell noted that beyond the visual appeal of the images, the encounter also served as a valuable test of the imager’s calibration and its sensitivity to scattered light, including successfully picking out the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos from considerable distance. That capability will be put to direct use once Psyche arrives at its destination, where the same imaging approach will be applied to search for any small moonlets that may be orbiting the asteroid, an important step in fully characterizing the body ahead of the spacecraft’s science operations.
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