NASA's Psyche spacecraft completed a precision flyby of Mars on May 15, skimming within 2,864 miles (4,609 km) of the surface. The maneuver used the planet's gravity as a slingshot, delivering a 1,000 mph speed boost and shifting the probe's orbital plane by about one degree without burning any onboard propellant.
During the encounter, Psyche's multispectral imager captured thousands of frames, including a striking enhanced-color view of the double-ring Huygens crater, roughly 290 miles (470 km) across, set amid the heavily cratered southern highlands. It also imaged wind-streaked craters in the Syrtis Major region and the water-ice fields of Mars' south pole.
The flyby doubled as a calibration run for the instruments Psyche will use at its destination: the metal-rich asteroid of the same name, believed to be the exposed core of an early planetesimal. The spacecraft is now on course to arrive at the asteroid in the summer of 2029.