NASA’s Lucy mission crew has determined to droop additional photo voltaic array deployment actions. The crew decided that working the mission with the photo voltaic array within the present unlatched state carries a suitable degree of threat and additional deployment actions are unlikely to be useful presently. The spacecraft continues to make progress alongside its deliberate trajectory.
Shortly after the spacecraft’s Oct. 2021 launch, the mission crew realized that one among Lucy’s two photo voltaic arrays had not correctly unfurled and latched. A sequence of actions in 2022 succeeded in additional deploying the array, inserting it right into a tensioned, however unlatched, state. Utilizing engineering fashions calibrated by spacecraft information, the crew estimates that the photo voltaic array is over 98% deployed, and it’s sturdy sufficient to face up to the stresses of Lucy’s 12-year mission.
The crew’s confidence within the stability of the photo voltaic array was affirmed by its habits throughout the shut flyby of the Earth on Oct. 16, 2022, when the spacecraft flew inside 243 miles (392 km) of the Earth, via the Earth’s higher environment. The photo voltaic array is producing the anticipated degree of energy at present photo voltaic vary and is anticipated to have sufficient functionality to carry out the baseline mission with margin.
The crew elected to droop deployment makes an attempt after the try on Dec. 13, 2022, produced solely small motion within the photo voltaic array. Floor-based testing indicated that the deployment makes an attempt had been most efficient whereas the spacecraft was hotter, nearer to the Solar.
Because the spacecraft is at present 123 million miles (197 million km) from the Solar (1.3 instances farther from the Solar than the Earth) and shifting away at 20,000 mph (35,000 km/hr), the crew doesn’t count on additional deployment makes an attempt to be useful beneath current situations.
Because of the vitality increase that the spacecraft obtained throughout final October’s Earth gravity help, the spacecraft is now on an orbit which is able to take it over 315 million miles (500 million km) from the Solar earlier than returning to Earth for a second Earth gravity help on Dec. 12, 2024.
Over the following 12 months and a half, the crew will proceed to gather information on how the photo voltaic array behaves throughout flight. Most importantly, the crew will observe how the array behaves throughout a maneuver in Feb. 2024, when the spacecraft operates its essential engine for the primary time. Because the spacecraft warms up throughout its strategy to Earth within the fall of 2024, the crew will re-evaluate if further steps to scale back threat shall be wanted.
Associated Hyperlinks
Lucy at NASA Blogs
Lucy at SwRI
Asteroid and Comet Mission News, Science and Technology
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New explanation for Jupiter’s two massive asteroid swarms
Abu Dhabi UAE (SPX) Jan 18, 2023
A world crew of scientists together with NYUAD researcher Nikolaos Georgakarakos and others from the US, Japan, and China led by Jian Li from Nanjing College, has developed new insights that will clarify the numerical asymmetry of the L4 and L5 Jupiter Trojan swarms, two clusters containing greater than 10,000 asteroids that transfer alongside Jupiter’s orbital path across the solar.
For many years, scientists have identified that there are considerably extra asteroids within the L4 swarm than the L5 swarm, however hav … read more
