// ORBITAL LOGISTICS AND PROPULSION TERM
Flyby Mission
A flyby mission is a space mission where a spacecraft passes close to a celestial body without entering its orbit or landing on it. It's often used for initial reconnaissance.
TECHNICAL DEFINITION
A space exploration mission profile where a spacecraft travels past a celestial body, collecting data during a brief close approach, without entering orbit or landing, often used for initial reconnaissance or gravity assist maneuvers.
BACKGROUND
Missions to the Moon have been numerous and represent some of the earliest endeavours in space missions, with continuous exploration of the Moon beginning in 1959.
READ MORE ON WIKIPEDIASYNONYMS & ALIASES
- Reconnaissance flyby
- Close approach mission
- Pass-by mission
- Transit mission
USAGE NOTE
The Voyager probes conducted numerous flyby missions of outer planets.
DEVELOPERS
Organizations developing technology related to Flyby Mission.
NASA is a primary agency for space exploration, planning, developing, and executing numerous flyby missions to study planets, moons, asteroids, and comets throughout the solar system. Their missions like Voyager and New Horizons are iconic flyby examples.
ESA conducts a wide range of space science and exploration missions, frequently utilizing flyby trajectories for gravity assists or initial observations of celestial bodies, such as with their Rosetta and BepiColombo missions.
JAXA is Japan's national aerospace agency, involved in planetary exploration that includes missions with flyby components, like the Hayabusa asteroid sample return missions and the Akatsuki Venus orbiter, which used Earth and Venus flybys.
Managed by Caltech for NASA, JPL designs, builds, and operates many of NASA's robotic planetary missions, including those that perform critical flybys for scientific data collection and trajectory adjustments, such as Galileo and Juno.
APL is a leader in developing and operating deep-space missions, notably the New Horizons mission which performed the first flybys of Pluto and Arrokoth, and the MESSENGER mission which completed multiple flybys of Mercury.
As a major aerospace manufacturer, Lockheed Martin Space builds spacecraft and instruments for various deep space missions for agencies like NASA, many of which involve complex flyby maneuvers for scientific exploration or trajectory shaping.
A prime contractor for many European space missions, Airbus Defence and Space contributes to the design and construction of spacecraft that perform flybys, particularly for ESA's planetary exploration programs like BepiColombo.