NASA Just Released a Month-Long Time-Lapse of Mars as a Spaceship Flew Past It, and It’s Heading to a Metal World [WATCH]

NASA has released a month-long time-lapse video showing its Psyche spacecraft approaching, flying past, and moving away from Mars during a gravity-assist maneuver completed on May 15, 2026. The flyby gave the spacecraft the speed boost and slight course adjustment needed to continue its journey toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, where it is scheduled to arrive in the summer of 2029.

Along the way, the spacecraft successfully tested all its science instruments, collecting data that matched scientists’ understanding of Mars while also providing a few new observations from a unique vantage point.

The flyby served as a full-scale rehearsal for the mission’s main objective. By treating Mars as a stand-in for asteroid Psyche, engineers tested the spacecraft’s camera, magnetometer, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer before the probe reaches its destination.

NASA said the successful instrument checks and the newly released time-lapse video confirm the spacecraft is performing as planned and remains on course for its 2029 asteroid encounter.

Mars Flyby Helped Test Every Major Science Instrument

NASA launched the Psyche spacecraft in October 2023 to study asteroid Psyche, a metallic object located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that scientists believe could be the exposed core of an early planetesimal.

During the May 15 flyby, the spacecraft passed about 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) above Mars, using the planet’s gravity to increase its speed while allowing mission scientists to test every major instrument.

“The mission’s imager, magnetometer, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer teams worked overtime to make full use of this planetary encounter, and all instruments delivered great results,” Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a NASA mission blog post.

“We didn’t anticipate big discoveries, given how extensively the planet has been studied, but we did complement Mars science with the data we collected through Psyche’s unique perspective.”

The spacecraft’s gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer successfully detected neutrons escaping from Mars, although it was too far away to measure gamma rays.

“Around the time of Mars’ closest approach, the neutron spectrometer detected a count-rate enhancement close to what we anticipated. It was very gratifying to see,” David Lawrence, science lead for Psyche’s spectrometer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in the NASA mission blog.

“As expected, we didn’t detect gamma rays from Mars, but we put the instrument through its paces, and it performed excellently.”

Meanwhile, Psyche’s magnetometer recorded the magnetic signature around Mars for the first time during the mission.

“As the spacecraft passed close to Mars, the magnetometer saw an intense uptick in magnetic field corresponding to the bow shock region, where the solar wind slams into the planet’s magnetic field,” Ben Weiss, Psyche’s deputy principal investigator and magnetometry investigation lead at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in the NASA mission blog.

“This flyby calibration effort validated the instrument’s performance under dynamic conditions while also revealing the fascinating physics of planetary magnetism.”

Time-Lapse Captures Rare Views of Mars and Its Moons

The newly released month-long time-lapse combines images captured from early May through the spacecraft’s departure after the flyby.

As Psyche approached Mars, the planet first appeared as a thin crescent before revealing detailed views of wind-shaped craters, the south polar ice cap and the large Huygens crater. The spacecraft also detected Mars’ two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, from a considerable distance.

“The imager performed brilliantly, delivering some rarely seen views of the Red Planet,” Jim Bell, Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University, said in the NASA mission blog.

“Besides the obvious beauty of the photos, we were also able to fully test its calibration and sensitivity to scattered light, including picking out the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos from very far away as a part of a practice for the satellite search that we’ll use at the asteroid Psyche to look for any moonlets there.”

Mission scientists are now comparing Psyche’s Mars images with observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, as well as spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency and the United Arab Emirates, to further calibrate the spacecraft’s camera before it reaches asteroid Psyche.

Following the successful gravity assist, the spacecraft is now traveling directly toward its destination between Mars and Jupiter.

“This gravity assist was years in the making, and the navigation team nailed it. Psyche flew by Mars on exactly the trajectory we needed to set us on a path to rendezvous with the asteroid in the summer of 2029,” Bob Mase, Psyche project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the NASA mission blog. “The spacecraft is in great shape, and we’re on schedule to resume sustained thrusting with the solar-electric propulsion system later this fall.”