Lucy’s Solar Powered Journey Continues

  • Released Wednesday, August 3, 2022
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Shortly after Lucy launched, one of its solar arrays failed to fully deploy, putting the mission at risk. Complete transcript available.

Universal Production Music: “Hypervelocity” by Sophy Olivia Purnell

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

NASA’s Lucy mission is heading to the Jupiter Trojans – two swarms of unexplored asteroids trapped in Jupiter’s orbit. Lucy made a picture-perfect launch on October 16, 2021, but when the spacecraft began to unfurl its solar arrays, it encountered an anomaly. One of the arrays failed to fully deploy and latch shut, putting the mission at risk. For months, Lucy’s flight operations team worked meticulously to address the issue and put Lucy back on its solar-powered journey to the Jupiter Trojans.

Learn more about the effort to address Lucy’s solar array anomaly.

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Wednesday, August 3, 2022.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 11:44 AM EDT.

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