NASA's Psyche spacecraft used a gravity-assist flyby of Mars on May 15 to bend its trajectory toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, passing just 2,864 miles (4,609 km) above the planet's surface. The maneuver both boosted the probe's speed and gave mission scientists a rare chance to test its instruments in a real planetary environment.
During the pass, Psyche's multispectral imager captured a time-lapse video and an enhanced-color mosaic showing windblown craters, the south polar ice cap, and the large double-ringed Huygens crater. The spacecraft's magnetometer and gamma-ray/neutron spectrometer also gathered data, all of which matched existing knowledge of Mars — validating the instruments ahead of the mission's real target.
Launched in 2023, Psyche is now on course to reach its namesake asteroid — a metal-rich body in the belt between Mars and Jupiter — in summer 2029, where it will study a world scientists believe may be a remnant planetary core.