Psyche Spacecraft Completes Mars Flyby
NASA's Psyche spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Mars on May 15, 2026. The spacecraft came within 2,864 miles of the Martian surface, capturing images of the planet's features. This maneuver provided a gravity assist to help it reach its destination, the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, by August 2029.
- ▪Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars on May 15, 2026, coming within 2,864 miles of its surface.
- ▪The flyby allowed the spacecraft to capture images, including one of the double-ring crater Huygens.
- ▪The gravity assist from Mars will help Psyche reach its target, the asteroid Psyche, in August 2029.
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1 min readPsyche Spacecraft Completes Mars FlybyJet Propulsion LaboratoryMay 20, 2026 Image Article NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. During the flyby, it took this image and others. This representative color image, captured by Psyche’s multispectral imager instrument, features the double-ring crater Huygens and the surrounding heavily cratered southern highlands. This flyby used a gravity assist from Mars to provide a critical boost in speed and to adjust the spacecraft’s orbital plane without using any onboard propellant, sending it on its way toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche.
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