A Mars flyby is a movement of

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

passing in the vicinity of the planet Mars, but not entering

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an ...

or landing on it. Page 15-16 in Chapter 3 of David S. F. Portree's ''Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950 - 2000,'' NASA Monographs in Aerospace History Series, Number 21, February 2001. Available a
NASA SP-2001-4521
Uncrewed space probes have used this method to collect data on Mars, as opposed to orbiting or landing. A spacecraft designed for a flyby is also known as a "flyby bus" or "flyby spacecraft".

Concepts

One application of a Mars flyby is for a human mission, where after landing and staying on the surface for some time the ascent stage has a

space rendezvous Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...

with another, uncrewed spacecraft, that was launched separately from Earth, flying by. This would mean the ascent stage of the lander to reach the speed necessary equal to that of the spacecraft flying by, but the resources needed for Earth return would not have to enter or leave Mars orbit. The spacecraft they live in on the journey to Mars does the flyby, but the crew separates and goes into a lander. The Excursion module's ascent stage must rejoin the main spacecraft before it gets too far away. An advantage is that the resources needed for Earth return don't have to enter and leave Mars orbit, but the ascent stage has to perform

in solar orbit and the time on Mars is constrained by the need to this. Mars cyclers orbit the Sun in such a way as to pass by Mars and the Earth on regular intervals, performing Mars flybys on regular intervals. The crews would live on the stations during the interplanetary voyages. The concept for Flyby Excursion Landing Module is that a lander and flyby would separate in solar orbit, the lander would accelerate to get to Mars first, then land on Mars meanwhile the other segment does a Mars flyby, then the lander takes off and rendezvous with the flyby segment transferring the crew over. (see also Mars Excursion Module (MEM)) Alternately, a flyby-only human mission is also possible, without detaching at Mars, but to

slingshot A slingshot or catapult is a small hand-powered projectile weapon. The classic form consists of a Y-shaped frame, with two tubes or strips made from either a natural rubber or synthetic elastic material. These are attached to the upper two ends ...

around Mars and back to Earth.

History

In July 1965, Mariner 4 achieved a flyby of Mars with a return of data, providing the public and scientists with dramatically closer images of Mars. During the flyby Mariner 4 took 21 pictures amounting to about 1% of the surface of Mars. Mars was not globally mapped until the

Mariner 9 Mariner 9 (Mariner Mars '71 / Mariner-I) was a robotic spacecraft that contributed greatly to the exploration of Mars and was part of the NASA Mariner program. Mariner 9 was launched toward Mars on May 30, 1971, from Spaceport Florida Launch Comp ...

orbiter, which over the course of 1972 to 1973 took thousands of images up to 100m a pixel. Observations from optical ground-based Earth telescopes have to peer through the atmosphere which blurs images, typically limiting them to resolving features about across even when Earth and Mars are closest. In October 1999,

Deep Space 1 ''Deep Space 1'' (DS1) was a NASA technology demonstration spacecraft which flew by an asteroid and a comet. It was part of the New Millennium Program, dedicated to testing advanced technologies. Launched on 24 October 1998, the ''Deep Space ...

made observations of Mars after its flyby of asteroid Braille. Although this was a very distant flyby it did succeed in taking multiple infrared spectra with its MICAS instrument of the planet. In 2018,

Mars Cube One Mars Cube One (or MarCO) was a Mars flyby mission launched on 5 May 2018 alongside NASA's ''InSight'' Mars lander. It consisted of two nanospacecraft, MarCO-A and MarCO-B, that provided real-time communications to Earth for ''InSight'' duri ...

(MarCO), two flyby

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of small satellite with a form factor of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit,, url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5418c831e4b0fa4ecac1bacd/t/5f24997b6deea10cc52bb016/1596234122437/CDS+REV14+2020-07-3 ...

s to relay communication from ''

InSight Insight is the understanding of a specific causality, cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of se ...

'' lander during its EDL were launched towards Mars with the cruise stage. Both MarCOs reached Mars and successfully relayed data during the entry, descent, and landing phase of ''Insight'' on November 26, 2018.

List of Mars flybys

20th century

Mariner program The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the in ...

spacecraft **

Mariner 4 Mariner 4 (Mariner C-3, together with Mariner 3 known as Mariner-Mars 1964) was the Mariner program, fourth in a series of spacecraft intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations ...

, mapped 1% of Mars with 21 images and returned other data. ** Mariner 6, and Mariner 7 returned data from Mars flybys, mapping about 20% of Mars more closely with a couple hundred images. *

Mars program The Mars program was a series of uncrewed spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1973. The spacecraft were intended to exploration of Mars, explore Mars, and included planetary flyby, flyby probes, Lander (spacecraft), landers an ...

spacecraft **Two Mars flyby attempts were made in 1960 under Mars 1M (Mars 1960A and Mars 1960B). **The third attempt at a Mars flyby was the Soviet Mars 2MV-4 No.1, also called Mars 1962A or Sputnik 22, which launched in 1962 as part of the

. but it was destroyed in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

due to rocket failure. ** Mars 1 also launched in 1962 but communications failed before it reached Mars.The Soviet Mars program
, Professor Chris Mihos, Case Western Reserve University **

Mars 4 Mars 4 (), also known as 3MS No.52S was a Soviet spacecraft intended to explore Mars. A 3MS spacecraft launched as part of the Mars programme, it was intended to enter orbit around Mars in 1974. However, computer problems prevented orbital insert ...

achieved a flyby in 1974 and detected a nightside ionosphere. **

Mars 6 Mars 6 (), also known as 3MP No.50P was a Soviet Union, Soviet spacecraft launched to explore Mars. A 3MP bus spacecraft launched as part of the Mars program, it consisted of a lander, and a coast stage with instruments to study Mars as it flew p ...

and 7 were Mars landers carried by instrumented flyby buses.

21st century

*'' Nozomi'', unintentional due to insertion failure. Flew by at about 1000 km. *''

Rosetta Rosetta ( ) or Rashid (, ; ) is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Rosetta Stone was discovered there in 1799. Founded around the 9th century on the site of the ancient town of Bolbitine, R ...

'', gravity assist to

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (abbreviated as 67P or 67P/C–G) is a Jupiter-family comet. It is originally from the Kuiper belt and has an orbital period of 6.45 years as of 2012, a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours, and a maximum velo ...

, Closest approach was 250 km. *''

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the diffuse sky radiation, appearance of indirect sunlight being Rayleigh scattering, scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc ha ...

'', gravity assist to Vesta and Ceres. Closest approach was 549 km. *

, twin flyby relay communication CubeSats for ''

'' lander. *'' Tianwen-1 Deployable Camera'', imaged

Tianwen-1 -1 ( zh , s = 天问一号) (also referred to as TW-1) is an interplanetary mission by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) which sent a robotic spacecraft to Mars, consisting of 6 spacecraft: an orbiter, two deployable cameras, lan ...

in deep space. *''

Europa Clipper Europa Clipper (previously known as Europa Multiple Flyby Mission) is a space probe developed by NASA to study Europa (moon), Europa, a Galilean moon of Jupiter. It was launched on October 14, 2024. The spacecraft used a gravity assist from Mar ...

'', gravity assist to Jupiter and Europa. Closest approach was 884 km.

En route

*''

Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; ; in Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Oly ...

'', gravity assist in March 2025, en route to 65803 Didymos *'' Psyche'', gravity assist in May 2026, en route to

16 Psyche 16 Psyche ( ) is a large M-type asteroid, which was discovered by the Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis, on 17 March 1852 and named after the Greek goddess Psyche. The prefix "16" signifies that it was the sixteenth minor plane ...

References

External links

Astronautix - Mars flybyMars by ''Rosetta''Annotated''Rosetta'' view of Mars during swingby by its comet lander Philae
{{Portal bar, Solar System Exploration of Mars Spaceflight concepts Flybys