Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA’s Lucy mission will soon be heading out to investigate Trojan asteroids

By

A NASA mission will soon be blasting off to investigate the Trojans, a lesser-studied group of asteroids in the outer solar system. The Lucy mission, named after the famed Australopithecus fossil which was key to understanding early human evolution, will be launching later this month and could help teach us about how the solar system formed.

The (ULA) Centaur stage for NASA’s Lucy mission is lifted by crane into the Vertical Integration Facility.
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Centaur stage for NASA’s Lucy mission is lifted by crane into the Vertical Integration Facility near Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. NASA/Kim Shiflett

The spacecraft has been brought to Florida, ready for its launch from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday, October 16. Lucy will be launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket from Pad 41, from where it will head through Earth’s atmosphere, out of Earth’s orbit, and through the solar system to the Trojan asteroids.

Recommended Videos

The Trojans are located in the orbit of Jupiter, in two groups — one ahead of the planet and one behind it. Astronomers think these asteroids are leftovers of some of the material which formed the planets in the earliest days of the solar system, so studying them can help us understand how planets are formed.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“With Lucy, we’re going to eight never-before-seen asteroids in 12 years with a single spacecraft,” said Tom Statler, Lucy project scientist at NASA Headquarters. “This is a fantastic opportunity for discovery as we probe into our solar system’s distant past.”

An artist's concept of the Lucy Mission.
An artist’s concept of the Lucy Mission. SwRI

“There has been a lot of hands-on work,” said Donya Douglas-Bradshaw, Lucy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This summer has gone by so fast; it’s hard to believe we’re nearly at launch.”

Related

With the spacecraft preparing for launch, its fuel tanks have been filled with a mix of liquid hydrazine and liquid oxygen which will allow it to maneuver between asteroids. It also has its solar panels to recharge its science instruments from the sun.

“Launching a spacecraft is almost like sending a child off to college – you’ve done what can for them to get them ready for that next big step on their own,” said Hal Levison, the principal investigator of the Lucy mission, based at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
See the polar moon sites where NASA plans to land its astronauts
An artist’s concept of an Artemis astronaut deploying an instrument on the lunar surface.

NASA has updated its list of potential landing sites for the next human visit to the moon, which is planned for 2026. The Artemis III mission will see the first crewed lunar landing since the Apollo era, and the plan is for astronauts to explore the moon's South Pole region where there is thought to be water ice on the lunar surface.

NASA shared a list of 13 candidate landing locations for Artemis III in 2022, but has now updated its list to nine candidates. Some of these were on the list previously, while others have been added such as the Mons Mouton mountain and plateau, which is particularly interesting to scientists because the height of the mountain means that there are permanently shadowed regions nearby. These places, where sunlight never touches, are particularly good candidates when it comes to looking for water ice.

Read more
NASA scrubs Thursday’s launch of Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter moon
The Falcon Heavy rocket on the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX and NASA have called off Thursday’s planned launch of the Europa Clipper mission due to Hurricane Milton, which is heading east toward Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center.

“Once the storm passes, recovery teams will assess the safety of the spaceport and the launch processing facilities for damage before personnel return to work,” NASA said in a post on social media on Sunday, adding in another message: “Teams have secured the spacecraft in SpaceX’s hangar at NASA Kennedy.”

Read more
Watch out-of-this-world footage from the recent Polaris Dawn mission
The view enjoyed by the four crew members of SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission.

SpaceX has shared some breathtaking footage captured from a Crew Dragon spacecraft during the recent Polaris Dawn mission.

The video (below) was recorded by an external camera from an altitude of about 450 miles (730 kilometers) during the spacecraft’s 75 orbits of Earth across the historic five-day mission.

Read more