plural flybys
1
: a prearranged usually low-altitude flight by one or more airplanes over a public gathering (such as an air show)
2
a
: a flight of a spacecraft past a celestial body (such as Mars) close enough to obtain scientific data
b
: a spacecraft that makes a flyby
Examples of flyby in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
During their lunar flyby livestream, the Artemis 2 crew suggested naming a moon crater Carroll, after her.
—
Chelsea Gohd, Space.com, 14 Apr. 2026
Koch and her fellow Artemis II crew members — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — traveled 694,481 miles, making their lunar flyby the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth.
—Francie Ebert, NBC news, 13 Apr. 2026
On their record-breaking flyby, the astronauts reached a maximum 252,756 miles from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon, eclipsing Apollo's 13 distance record.
—Arkansas Online, 12 Apr. 2026
On the sixth day of the mission, the astronauts embarked on a seven-hour flyby, seeing features on the moon that had never been glimpsed by human eyes.
—Jackie Wattles, CNN Money, 11 Apr. 2026
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Chelsea Gohd, Space.com, 14 Apr. 2026
Koch and her fellow Artemis II crew members — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — traveled 694,481 miles, making their lunar flyby the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth.
—Francie Ebert, NBC news, 13 Apr. 2026
On their record-breaking flyby, the astronauts reached a maximum 252,756 miles from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon, eclipsing Apollo's 13 distance record.
—Arkansas Online, 12 Apr. 2026
On the sixth day of the mission, the astronauts embarked on a seven-hour flyby, seeing features on the moon that had never been glimpsed by human eyes.
—Jackie Wattles, CNN Money, 11 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for flyby
Cite this Entry
“Flyby.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flyby. Accessed 17 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
flyby
noun
fly·by
-ˌbī 
plural flybys
1
: a usually low-altitude flight past a chosen place by one or more aircraft
2
a
: a flight of a spacecraft past a heavenly body (as Mars) close enough to obtain scientific information
b
: a spacecraft that makes a flyby
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