NASA's Lucy asteroid probe settles into Earth-orbiting cruise as engineers tackle solar array glitch - Space.com

Days after NASA's new mission to a mysterious group of asteroids launched, spacecraft personnel continue battling an issue with one of the vehicle's two massive solar arrays.

But when the spacecraft deployed the arrays after launch on Saturday (Oct. 16), only one appeared to have properly latched.

Since then, mission personnel have been working simultaneously to assess the second solar array and to complete the unrelated tasks Lucy needs to accomplish at this point in its journey.

In a statement released Tuesday (Oct. 19), NASA officials emphasized that the spacecraft can continue operating with the solar arrays as they are currently deployed and that the glitch isn't the end of the road for Lucy's mission.

"That solar array is generating nearly the expected power when compared to the fully deployed wing.

That's not surprising, since Lucy's arrays are designed to power the spacecraft on much less sunlight than it's currently receiving.

She also noted that the instruments on Lucy can gather data during its flybys while using just 82 watts of power.

As the mission team continues to evaluate the state of the second solar array, engineers are working on other post-launch tasks as well.

The spacecraft entered cruise mode on Tuesday to give Lucy necessary "increased autonomy and spacecraft configuration changes," according to the release.

In a concession to the solar array situation, however, the spacecraft has not yet deployed its instrument pointing platform, which had been scheduled to occur about two days after launch.

The Lucy team isn't sure yet whether the incident will have "any long-term implications to other scheduled activities," the statement notes.