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NASA’s Daring Lucy Mission to Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids Poised To Launch - SciTechDaily

NASA’s Daring Lucy Mission to Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids Poised To Launch - SciTechDaily

NASA’s Daring Lucy Mission to Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids Poised To Launch - SciTechDaily
Oct 14, 2021 1 min, 56 secs

Lucy will explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids – thought to be “fossils of planet formation.” Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is encapsulated in a protective fairing atop an Atlas V rocket, awaiting its 23-day launch window to open on October 16.

All is go for the Southwest Research Institute-led mission to begin, as the spacecraft prepares to launch on a 12-year journey of almost 4 billion miles to visit a record-breaking eight asteroids — one main belt asteroid and seven Jupiter Trojan asteroids.

The SwRI-led Lucy mission will survey eight asteroids in 12 years with one spacecraft, breaking records in its epic journey to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

“The Trojan asteroids are leftovers from the early days of our solar system, effectively fossils of the planet formation process,” said SwRI’s Harold Levison, the principal investigator of the mission.

The Lucy spacecraft is tucked into the launch vehicle fairing, which closed around it like a clamshell in preparation for liftoff.

The SwRI-led Lucy mission will investigate eight asteroids over 12 years, as the spacecraft travels 4 billion miles to the Trojan asteroids.

The Lucy mission is the first space mission to explore this diverse population of small bodies known as the Jupiter Trojan asteroids.

“Lucy’s ability to fly by so many targets means that we will not only get the first up-close look at this unexplored population, but we will also be able to study why these asteroids appear so different,” said SwRI’s Cathy Olkin, deputy principal investigator of the mission.

Following pandemic protocols, Lucy team members have spent nearly two months at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida preparing the spacecraft for flight.

Engineers have tested the spacecraft’s mechanical, electrical and thermal systems, and they have practiced executing the launch sequence from the mission operations centers at Kennedy and Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.

to monitor the spacecraft and run through the full launch countdown procedures.

Hal Levison, Lucy principal investigator, and Dr.

SwRI is the principal investigator institution for Lucy.

Lucy is the 13th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington

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