Astrophysics (Index)About

Lucy

(Discovery 13, Trojans' Odyssey)
(space probe to observe Jupiter Trojan asteroids)

Lucy (Discovery 13, an early-used name was Trojans' Odyssey) is a space probe traveling to the two Sun-Jupiter Lagrangian points in Jupiter's orbital path (the Trojan points), to investigate a number of asteroids at those locations (Trojan asteroids). Instruments:

Another instrument, TTCam (Terminal Tracking Camera, aka T2CAM) is actually two cameras used for guidance (TTCam-1 and TTCam-2). Radio science experiments will also be used. L'LORRI and L'Ralph are updated copies of New Horizons' LORRI and Ralph, and L'TES after an OSIRIS-REx instrument, these derivations being the reason for using the "L apostrophe". L'Ralph is actually two instruments, MVIC (Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera) and LEISA (Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array).

Lucy was launched in October 2021. The trip is lengthy: Lucy is to reach its first target-asteroid in 2025, the L4 point in 2027, and the L5 point in 2033. In November, 2023 Lucy will run a trial by similarly observing an asteroid as it passes through the main belt. The space probe, Lucy is named for the hominin fossil with that nickname, which was discovered in 1974. The Lucy fossil has been useful in studying the origin of humans, and the Lucy spacecraft asteroid observations promise to be useful in studying the origin of the solar system.


(asteroids,spacecraft,NASA)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(spacecraft)
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lucy/
https://lucy.swri.edu/
https://blogs.nasa.gov/lucy/
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4719/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021PSJ.....2..172O/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011epsc.conf..703L/abstract

Referenced by page:
Lagrangian point

Index