Remember the satellite Psyche, a probe launched in 2023 to visit the asteroid by that name (16 Psyche)? The probe has been en route to the asteroid since '23 and is not expected to arrive at its target until 2029. Psyche flew by Mars today, passing as close as 2800 miles, in a gravity assist-slingshot maneuver. Since we're going into a weekend, and I haven't run across any statements on how well the slingshot worked, I expect it will be next week before we get any real news on that.
The "selling reason" for the mission is that 16 Psyche is one of the densest known asteroids so it must have an unusual past compared to the others we can observe. It's often referred to as being a metal asteroid and the possible description that it might be the core of a planet that never completely formed, or that was broken apart long ago. That implies a core of iron and nickel, like the Earth's, but it's also possible it's got some amount of really high density metals like perhaps gold or other valuable metals.
I've done several posts about psyche starting in 2022, a first attempt to launch that they never got working during it's short launch window, then around the launch in 2023 and once or twice since then. The CalTech Jet Propulsion Laboratory put together this graphic of the mission and where today's flyby is shown: the Mars Gravity Assist in the top center of the graphic.
Psyche's mission plan. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
These gravity assist slingshots were developed in the 1960s and they have several advantages. The first advantage is that they increase the relative velocity of the spacecraft toward its target with very little impact to the planet or body providing the boost. The second big advantage is they require little to no use of the spacecraft's fuel to achieve that increased speed. A third advantage is that it allows the satellite's instruments to be tested more completely close to the slingshot than when its on its own in deep space.
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