While this suggests that observers on Earth will not be able to see Lucy in the days before the occasion, Lucy will be able to take images of the almost full Earth and Moon.” The Lucy team has prepared 2 various maneuvers,” says Coralie Adam, Lucy deputy navigation group chief from KinetX Aerospace in Simi Valley, California. The Lucy trajectory during the Earth flyby seen from above the Earths North pole, a red dot every 10 minutes. The video camera follows Lucy as the spacecraft approaches the sunlit side of Earth before crossing into Earths shadow as it slingshots around the planet. Additionally, if you are in an area where Lucy will be noticeable, take a picture of Lucy and post it to social media with the #SpotTheSpacecraft hashtag.
NASAs Lucy spacecraft will make a remarkably close flyby of Earth on October 16, 2022. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight
For this first gravity help, Lucy will appear to approach Earth from the direction of the Sun. While this means that observers in the world will not have the ability to see Lucy in the days before the event, Lucy will be able to take pictures of the nearly full Earth and Moon. Objective researchers will use these images to calibrate the instruments.
Lucys trajectory will bring the spacecraft really near to Earth, lower even than the International Space Station (ISS), which indicates that Lucy will go through an area full of earth-orbiting satellites and particles. To guarantee the safety of the spacecraft, NASA developed procedures to expect any prospective danger and, if needed, to carry out a little maneuver to prevent a collision.
” The Lucy group has prepared two various maneuvers,” states Coralie Adam, Lucy deputy navigation team chief from KinetX Aerospace in Simi Valley, California. “If the group identifies that Lucy is at risk of colliding with a satellite or piece of particles, then– 12 hours before the closest approach to Earth– the spacecraft will execute among these, modifying the time of closest approach by either 2 or four seconds. This is a little correction, but it suffices to prevent a possibly devastating accident.”
Illustration of the Lucy spacecraft near a big asteroid with Jupiter visible in the far-off background. Credit: Southwest Research Institute
Lucy will be passing the Earth at such a low altitude that the group had to include the result of atmospheric drag when creating this flyby. Lucys big solar arrays increase this effect.
” In the original strategy, Lucy was really going to pass about 30 miles more detailed to the Earth,” states Rich Burns, Lucy task manager at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “However, when it became clear that we may need to perform this flyby with among the solar ranges unlatched, we chose to use a little our fuel reserves so that the spacecraft passes the Earth at a somewhat higher altitude, lowering the disruption from the atmospheric drag on the spacecrafts solar varieties.”
At around 6:55 a.m. EDT, Lucy will initially be visible to observers on the ground in Western Australia (6:55 p.m. for those observers). Lucy will rapidly pass overhead, clearly visible to the naked eye for a couple of minutes prior to vanishing at 7:02 a.m. EDT as the spacecraft passes into the Earths shadow. Lucy will continue over the Pacific Ocean in darkness and emerge from the Earths shadow at 7:26 a.m. EDT. If the clouds work together, skywatchers in the western United States must have the ability to get a view of Lucy with the help of binoculars.
The Lucy trajectory throughout the Earth flyby seen from above the Earths North pole, a red dot every 10 minutes. Place at some key times indicated in white. Credit: SWRI
” The last time we saw the spacecraft, it was being enclosed in the payload fairing in Florida,” stated Hal Levison. He is the Lucy principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Boulder, Colorado office. “It is interesting that we will have the ability to stand here in Colorado and see the spacecraft once again. And this time Lucy will be in the sky.”
Lucy will then rapidly recede from the Earths area, going by the Moon and taking a few more calibration images prior to continuing out into interplanetary space.
” Im particularly excited by the final couple of images that Lucy will take of the Moon,” said John Spencer, acting deputy job researcher at SwRI. “Counting craters to understand the collisional history of the Trojan asteroids is crucial to the science that Lucy will carry out, and this will be the very first opportunity to calibrate Lucys ability to discover craters by comparing it to previous observations of the Moon by other area objectives.”
Ride-along view of Lucys first Earth gravity help (EGA). The cam follows Lucy as the spacecraft approaches the sunlit side of Earth prior to crossing into Earths shadow as it slingshots around the world. Credit: NASAs Scientific Visualization Studio
The general public is welcomed to sign up with the #WaveToLucy social media campaign by posting images of themselves waving towards the spacecraft and tagging the @NASASolarSystem account. Furthermore, if you are in a location where Lucy will be noticeable, take a photo of Lucy and publish it to social media with the #SpotTheSpacecraft hashtag. Instructions for observing Lucy from your place are readily available here.
NASA Goddard provides total mission management, systems engineering and the security and mission guarantee for Lucy. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are accountable for navigating the Lucy spacecraft. Lucy is the thirteenth objective in NASAs Discovery Program, which is managed by NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
On October 16, 2022, Lucy will fly by the Earth like a partner in a swing dance, increasing its speed and lengthening its orbit around the Sun. At 7:04 am, Eastern Time, Lucy will make its closest approach at simply 219 miles above the world: lower than the International Space Station.
NASAs Lucy spacecraft, the very first objective to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, will skim the Earths atmosphere on October 16, at 7:04 a.m. EDT. It is a really close spacecraft flyby, passing a mere 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the surface area. By sling-shotting previous Earth on the very first anniversary of its launch, Lucy will acquire some of the orbital energy it needs to take a trip to this never-before-visited population of asteroids.
Discovered in February 1906 by German astrophotographer Max Wolf, the Trojan asteroids are caught in orbits around the Sun at the exact same distance as Jupiter. Theyre basically following the same orbit, just either far ahead of or behind the giant planet. Lucy is presently one year into a twelve-year, 4-billion-mile voyage to study these ancient asteroids.
There, Lucy will fly past 6 Trojan asteroids: Eurybates and its satellite Queta, Polymele and its yet unnamed satellite, Leucus, and Orus. Lucy will then return to Earth for a 3rd gravity assist in 2030 to re-target the spacecraft for a rendezvous with the Patroclus-Menoetius binary asteroid pair in the routing Trojan asteroid swarm.