Psyche Mission Passes Mars
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Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Video imagery:
- Psyche spacecraft animation: NASA, Iron Rooster Creative.
- Psyche spacecraft flight route animation: NASA, JPL/Caltech
- Psyche’s images of Mars: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
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A collage of photos of stars, galaxies, planets and other celestial bodies scroll past.
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A title: News from the Universe.
Text: June 8, 2026. Psyche Mission Passes Mars. In an animation, a light shines out from an aperture on the Psyche spacecraft floating through space.
Text: En route to the solar system's asteroid belt, NASA's Psyche spacecraft successfully completed its Mars flyby, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet's surface.
The animation captures the silver underbelly of the spacecraft. The spacecraft flies away from planet Earth and passes around Mars.
Text: This flyby created a gravity assist from Mars to provide a critical boost in speed and to adjust the spacecraft's trajectory without using any onboard propellant.
Text: Psyche captured this crescent view of the Red Planet on May 15. In a photo, the mostly dark planet Mars displays a glowing reddish crescent ridge along its southern half.
Text: Here Psyche shows the icy cap of Mars' south pole, which measures more than 430 miles (700 kilometers) across.
A banded white patch with irregular edges sprawls across the surface of Mars.
Text: This image shows streaks that formed due to the Martian wind blowing over impact craters.
Red pock marks display blurred edges.
Text: The spacecraft is now headed directly toward its ultimate destination, a metal-rich asteroid also named Psyche, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is on schedule to arrive there in August 2029.
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In an animation, Psyche the spacecraft travels over the rough, rocky surface of Psyche the asteroid.
Text: This news was brought to you in part by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.