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Science
There sure are some clever people on Earth
More than two years after launch, NASA's Psyche mission will whizz past Mars on May 15, using the planet's gravity to tweak its trajectory and accelerate on to its asteroid destination.
The spacecraft, which was launched on October 13, 2023, will pass just 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) above the surface of the red planet at 12,333 mph (19,848 kph) on its way to the metal-rich asteroid, Psyche.
In February, the spacecraft's thrusters were fired for 12 hours to refine its approach to Mars. That refinement played its part in today's flyby. However, it won't be until a Doppler shift is recorded in the signals from the spacecraft as it passes Mars that scientists will be able to definitively confirm its new speed and trajectory.
These techniques are not new. Gravity assist maneuvers have been a thing since the dawn of the space age, and were theorized long before. One of the most famous beneficiaries is the Voyager mission, which took advantage of a rare planetary alignment to undertake a "Grand Tour" of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The trajectory allowed significant propellant to be saved.
And, of course, the use of gravity assists highlights the work undertaken by boffins in trajectory planning to calculate exactly how a spacecraft should be launched and what corrections are needed to achieve the required precision.
Psyche is due to reach its destination in 2029, and the Mars flyby will allow scientists to check out the spacecraft's payload. For example, the multispectral imager will capture thousands of observations of Mars.
According to NASA, Sarah Bairstow, Psyche's mission planning lead at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said: "This is our first opportunity in flight to calibrate Psyche's imager with something bigger than a few pixels, and we’ll also make observations with the mission's other science instruments."
A bit of bonus science is always welcome, as well as a rehearsal for the main event, when Psyche reaches its destination.
"Ultimately, though, the only reason for this flyby is to get a little help from Mars to speed us up and tilt our trajectory in the direction of the asteroid Psyche," said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator for Psyche at the University of California, Berkeley.
"But if all our instruments are powered up, and we can do important testing and calibration of the science instruments, that would be the icing on the cake." ®
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