NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, bound for a rare metal-rich asteroid in the main belt, will swing past Mars this week to pick up a gravity assist and save fuel for the remainder of its six-year journey. Launched in October 2023, Psyche is on a roughly 2.2-billion-mile trek to the asteroid that gives the mission its name — a body scientists call a “metal world” that may hold clues to how planetary cores form.
On its Mars pass the spacecraft will come very close to the planet — about 2,800 miles above the surface at closest approach — and will be traveling at roughly 12,333 miles per hour as it uses Mars’ gravity to speed up and tweak its trajectory toward the asteroid Psyche. The maneuver reduces the propellant the probe will otherwise need to reach its target and helps set up the second half of the mission.
While the main goal of the flyby is the trajectory change, mission teams plan to make scientific and engineering use of the encounter. Psyche has already returned an image of Mars taken from about 3 million miles away, and operators intend to gather additional observations during the close pass to create a time-lapse sequence. Scientists say some images may not show Mars’ typical reddish tint but should still provide valuable and visually striking data.
The spacecraft will also test a satellite-search capability that could later be used to look for objects orbiting the asteroid Psyche. Project leaders note that instrument testing and calibration during the flyby would be a welcome bonus on top of the gravity assist.
The asteroid Psyche orbits between Mars and Jupiter and is thought to contain large amounts of nickel and iron. Because it may represent an exposed planetary core, studying it could offer rare insight into the formation and evolution of rocky planets, including Earth. Once Psyche arrives at its destination at the end of 2029, the spacecraft is scheduled to spend roughly two years orbiting the asteroid, mapping its surface and analyzing its composition to better understand this unusual, metal-rich world.