News Archive

Dark image showing thin crescent of the Martian surface.

May 19, 2026 / Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA’s Psyche Mission Aces Mars Flyby, Targets Metal-Rich Asteroid

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. This flyby used a gravity assist from Mars to...

May 8, 2026 / NASA

NASA’s Psyche Mission to Fly by Mars for Gravity Assist

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will get a boost from Mars on Friday, May 15, passing just 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) from the planet’s surface at some 12,333 mph (19,848 kph). The spacecraft...
3D rendering of the Psyche asteroid with a rocky, cratered surface against a starry black background

March 16, 2026 / University of Arizona

Large craters offer clues to the origin of asteroid 16 Psyche

Even 200 years after asteroid 16 Psyche was discovered, astronomers continue to puzzle over its formation. Psyche is the 10th-most massive asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter,...
Star field with labeled stars and trajectory of an object from Sept 8 to Sept 9, 2025. Inset shows a close-up with scale

December 4, 2025 / NASA

NASA’s Psyche Mission Tracks Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

NASA’s Psyche observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS over the course of eight hours on Sept. 8 and 9, when the comet was about 33 million miles (53 million kilometers) from the spacecraft. Captured...
Star field with labeled stars HIP 61424, AX CVn, HIP 60569, HIP 61320, HIP 61309, HIP 61114, HIP 61818.

November 19, 2025 / NASA

View Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Through NASA’s Multiple Lenses

NASA is in the midst of an unprecedented solar system-wide observation campaign, turning its spacecraft and space telescopes to follow comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object to pass...
Observatory dome under a starry night sky with silhouetted trees, related to NASA's Deep Space Communications Demo

September 18, 2025 / Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA’s Deep Space Communications Demo Exceeds Project Expectations

NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology successfully showed that data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after traveling millions of miles from...
NASA's Psyche captures Earth and Moon with stars labeled: 43 Ari, 37 Ari, 36 Ari, AM Ari. Inset shows Earth and Moon

August 19, 2025 / Jet Propulsion Laboratory

NASA’s Psyche Captures Images of Earth & Moon

On schedule for its 2029 arrival at the asteroid Psyche, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft recently looked back toward home and captured images of Earth and our Moon from about 180 million miles (290...
Optical ground station equipment with "No Step" signs, set against a clear sky with the moon visible

July 15, 2025 / ESA

Europe’s first deep-space optical communication link

The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully established a transmission-reception optical link with NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment onboard its Psyche mission, located...
3D rendering of the Psyche spacecraft with solar panels extended, set against a starry space background

June 20, 2025 / NASA

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Resumes Full-Time Propulsion

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft resumed full thruster operations on June 16, and the propulsion system is performing as expected after mission engineers switched to a backup propellant line. They...
3D rendering of the Psyche spacecraft with solar panels extended, set against a starry space background

May 28, 2025 / NASA

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Using Backup Fuel Line

Engineers with NASA’s Psyche mission have developed a solution to address the decrease in fuel pressure they detected recently in the spacecraft’s propulsion system: They have successfully...
3D rendering of the Psyche spacecraft with solar panels extended, set against a starry space background

April 29, 2025 / NASA

NASA’s Psyche Mission Looking Into Propulsion System

Engineers with NASA’s Psyche mission are working to determine what caused a recent decrease in fuel pressure in the spacecraft’s propulsion system. The spacecraft relies on solar electric...
Night sky with a comet visible above a silhouetted landscape and trees, under a gradient sunset horizon

July 18, 2024 / Scott Bordow

9 months into a 6-year journey to a far-flung asteroid, NASA’s Psyche mission cruising along

These days, Lindy Elkins-Tanton is living out a Talking Heads song lyric: She’s keeping her feet on the ground and her head in the sky. Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator of the Arizona...