Lucy will be the first space mission to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. The Trojans may be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets, and serve as time capsules from the birth of our solar system more than 4 billion years ago.
Lucy is the first mission to explore and study Trojan asteroids. The Trojans are a type of asteroids that orbit the Sun in two groups, in front of and behind Jupiter in its orbit around our star. Since these asteroids have been in such stable orbits for billions of years, they are of great interest as remnants of early Solar System. Lucy is a NASA mission led by NASA Goddard and Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Over the course of 12 years, Lucy will fly by seven different Trojan asteroids and also one main belt asteroid. The complex trajectory to visit all targets will include several Earth gravity assists.
An Atlas V with a 4 meter diameter fairing, no boosters and a single centaur upper stage engine.
See Atlas DetailsUnited Launch Alliance (ULA) is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. ULA was formed in December 2006 by combining the teams at these companies which provide spacecraft launch services to the government of the United States. ULA launches from both coasts of the US. They launch their Atlas V vehicle from LC-41 in Cape Canaveral and LC-3E at Vandeberg. Their Delta IV launches from LC-37 at Cape Canaveral and LC-6 at Vandenberg.
INFO WIKINASA has added another asteroid flyby to its Lucy mission later this year that will provide a test of its capabilities for future encounters.
NASA is suspending efforts, at least until late next year, to try to fully deploy a solar array on its Lucy spacecraft, citing diminishing returns as the spacecraft heads away from the sun.
A year after its launch, NASA’s Jupiter Trojan asteroid explorer Lucy has completed its first of multiple Earth gravity assists on its journey to explore nine asteroids. Lucy is a first-of-its-kind mission to visit several Trojan asteroids…
We've still got to wait three years before the first asteroid flyby.
With the first half of 2022 coming to a close, NASA teams are continuing work to resolve the Lucy spacecraft’s solar array issue following its October 2021 launch. Lucy is a first-of-a-kind mission to visit several asteroids in Jupiter’s L…
Soyuz MS-24 carried two cosmonauts and one astronaut to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in K…
Third flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying a payload for the US Department of Defense.
A batch of 21 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Classified space situational awareness (SSA) payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
3 Chinese reconnaissance satellites of unknown purposes, officially reported as for "Electromagnetic environment probing" purposes.
A batch of 22 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Third commercial Virgin Galactic mission.
X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), formerly the X-Ray Astronomy Recovery Mission (XARM), is a replacement for the Hitomi satellite that …
The Yaogan 33-03 is a Chinese military “remote sensing” satellite of unknown purpose.
4 small satellites for LEO Internet of Things (IoT) communication purposes.