Lucy (spacecraft)
Lucy is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year journey to eight different asteroids. It is slated to visit two main belt asteroids as well as six Jupiter trojans – asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the planet. All target encounters will be flyby encounters. The Lucy spacecraft is the centerpiece of a US$981 million mission. It was launched on 16 October 2021.
Artist's conception of Lucy spacecraft flying past the Trojan asteroid 617 Patroclus and its binary companion Menoetius | |
| Names | Discovery Mission 13 |
|---|---|
| Mission type | Multiple-flyby of asteroids |
| Operator | NASA Goddard · SwRI |
| COSPAR ID | 2021-093A |
| SATCAT no. | 49328 |
| Website | lucy |
| Mission duration | 12 years (planned) 2 years, 3 months and 26 days (in progress) |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Manufacturer | Lockheed Martin |
| Launch mass | 1,550 kg (3,420 lb) |
| Dry mass | 821 kg (1,810 lb) |
| Dimensions | 13 m (43 ft) in long Each solar panel: 7.3 m (24 ft) in diameter |
| Power | 504 watts (furthest encounter) |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 16 October 2021, 09:34 UTC |
| Rocket | Atlas V 401 (AV-096) |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral SLC-41 |
| Contractor | United Launch Alliance |
| Instruments | |
| High-resolution visible imager (L'LORRI) Optical and near-infrared imaging spectrometer (L'Ralph) Thermal infrared spectrometer (L'TES) | |
Lucy mission patch | |
On 4 January 2017, Lucy was chosen, along with the Psyche mission, as NASA's Discovery Program missions 13 and 14 respectively.
The mission is named after the Lucy hominin fossils, because study of the trojans could reveal the "fossils of planet formation": materials that clumped together in the early history of the Solar System to form planets and other bodies. The hominid was named after the 1967 Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". The spacecraft carries a disc made of lab-grown diamonds for its L'TES instrument.