Lucy: Mission to Jupiter’s Trojans

[bystander]

Mission to Jupiter’s Trojans Given the Green Light for Development
NASA | Goddard Space Flight Center | Lucy | 2018 Oct 30

This diagram illustrates Lucy's orbital path. The spacecraft’s path (green) is shown in a frame of reference where Jupiter remains stationary, giving the trajectory its pretzel-like shape. After launch in October 2021, Lucy has two close Earth flybys before encountering its Trojan targets. In the L4 cloud Lucy will fly by (3548) Eurybates (white), (15094) Polymele (pink), (11351) Leucus (red), and (21900) Orus (red) from 2027-2028. After diving past Earth again Lucy will visit the L5 cloud and encounter the (617) Patroclus-Menoetius binary (pink) in 2033. As a bonus, in 2025 on the way to the L4, Lucy flies by a small Main Belt asteroid, (52246) Donaldjohanson (white), named for the discoverer of the Lucy fossil. After flying by the Patroclus-Menoetius binary in 2033, Lucy will continue cycling between the two Trojan clouds every six years. (Credits: Southwest Research Institute)

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NASA's mission to perform the first reconnaissance of the Trojans, a population of primitive asteroids orbiting in tandem with Jupiter, passed a critical milestone today. NASA has given approval for the implementation and 2021 launch of the Lucy spacecraft.

The confirmation review, formally known as "Key Decision Point C," authorized continuation of the project into the development phase and set its cost and schedule. The confirmation review panel approved the detailed plans, instrument suite, budget and risk factor analysis for the spacecraft.

The next major mission milestone, the Critical Design Review, will examine the detailed Lucy system design. After a successful critical design review, the project team will assemble the spacecraft and its instruments. ...

Lucy, the first space mission to study the Trojans, takes its name from the fossilized human ancestor called “Lucy” by her discoverers whose skeleton provided unique insight into humanity's evolution. Likewise, the Lucy mission will revolutionize our knowledge of planetary origins and the formation of the solar system.

Lucy is planned for launch October 2021. During its 12-year journey, the spacecraft will visit seven different asteroids - a Main Belt asteroid and six Trojans. The spacecraft and a remote-sensing instrument suite will study the geology, surface composition, and bulk physical properties of these bodies at close range. ...

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[bystander]

Lucy in the Sky with … Asteroids?
NASA | GSFC | Lucy | 2018 Nov 21

Conceptual image of the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids. Credits: NASA/SwRI

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A little over 4 billion years ago, the planets in our solar system coexisted with vast numbers of small rocky or icy objects orbiting the Sun. These were the last remnants of the planetesimals – the primitive building blocks that formed the planets. Most of these leftover objects were then lost, as shifts in the orbits of the giant planets scattered them to the distant outer reaches of the solar system or beyond. But some were captured in two less-distant regions, near points where the gravitational influence of Jupiter and the Sun balance, and have remained trapped there, mostly untouched, for billions of years.

Not quite 4 million years ago, an ancient ancestor of modern humans roamed the land in what later would become the country of Ethiopia. Thirty-four years ago, Donald Johanson discovered the fossilized skeleton of this creature, later named Lucy, after the Beatles’ 1967 hit “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

Three years from now, a spacecraft named Lucy, inspired by the famous fossil, will begin its exploration that could help determine the early history of the Solar System.

NASA’s Lucy mission will fly by six of those trapped planetesimals – the Jupiter Trojan asteroids – giving humanity its first glimpse of these ancient objects. By studying these fossils of planet formation, the Lucy mission could reveal as much about the development of the solar system as the Lucy fossil did about human evolution. And on the way to the Trojans, Lucy will visit an asteroid that the team has named Donaldjohanson, after the anthropologist that discovered the fossilized skeleton of our ancestor. ...

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[bystander]

Lucy Mission Completes Critical Design Review
Southwest Research Institute | 2019 Oct 21

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Fossils of Planet Formation: Lucy Mission Teaser ~ Credit: NASA GSFC/Dan Gallagher

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The Lucy mission led by Southwest Research Institute is one step closer to its 2021 launch to explore the Trojan asteroids, a population of ancient small bodies that share an orbit with Jupiter. With the successful completion of its critical design review last week, the Lucy spacecraft is on track to begin a 12-year journey of almost 4 billion miles to visit a record-breaking seven asteroids — one main belt asteroid and six Trojans.

“The Trojan asteroids are leftovers from the early days of our solar system, effectively fossils of the planet formation process,” said SwRI’s Harold Levison, the principal investigator of the mission. “They hold vital clues to deciphering the history of our solar system. Lucy, like the human ancestor fossil for which it is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins.”

The design review was a major mission milestone. An independent board including members from NASA and several external organizations evaluated all aspects of the Lucy mission, from the spacecraft and instrument payload to flight hardware and software, systems engineering, mission assurance, ground systems and overall science mission. This marks the end of Lucy’s design phase and a shift to building the spacecraft and instruments that will explore the diverse Trojan asteroids. ...

[bystander]

Lucy Mission Has a New Destination
Southwest Research Institute | 2020 Jan 09

Hubble images of Eurybates and its newly discovered satellite shown in this animated
gif alternate between the Jan. 3, 2020, detection of the satellite (circled in green) and
the Dec. 11, 2019, data when the satellite was too close to the primary to be observed.
Credit: NASA, HST, and Noll

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Less than two years before launch, scientists associated with NASA’s Lucy mission, led by Southwest Research Institute, have discovered an additional small asteroid that will be visited by the Lucy spacecraft. Set to launch in 2021, its 12-year journey of almost 4 billion miles will explore the Trojan asteroids, a population of ancient small bodies that share an orbit with Jupiter.

This first-ever mission to the Trojans was already going to break records by visiting seven asteroids during a single mission. Now, using data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Lucy team discovered that the first Trojan target, Eurybates, has a satellite. This discovery provides an additional object for Lucy to study. ...

The small object was difficult to spot, in part, because Eurybates is 6,000 times brighter than its satellite. This implies that it’s less than 1 km (0.5 miles) across, which, if correct, would make it among the smallest objects ever visited by a spacecraft. ...

While the current data are enough to confirm the existence of the satellite, the Lucy team will collect more HST data later this year to better understand the object’s orbit. ...

[bystander]

Lucy Mission One Step Closer to Jupiter's Trojan Asteroids
Southwest Research Institute | 2020 Aug 03

This artist’s concept shows the Lucy spacecraft observing a Trojan asteroid. This NASA mission, led by Southwest Research Institute, passed a major milestone in preparation for the spacecraft launch in 2021. Courtesy of NASA/Lockheed Martin

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NASA’s Lucy mission, led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), has achieved an important milestone by passing its System Integration Review and clearing the way for spacecraft assembly. This NASA Discovery Program class mission will be the first to explore Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, ancient small bodies that share an orbit with Jupiter and hold important insights to understanding the early solar system.

The Lucy spacecraft, during its nominal 12-year mission, will fly by and collect data from seven of these primitive worlds, plus a main belt asteroid. Because the Trojan asteroids are remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets, they hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system. Lucy, like the human fossil for which it is named, will revolutionize the understanding of our origins.

Over the last few months, the Lucy team has focused on building and testing all the components of the spacecraft, including the scientific instruments, electronics, communications and navigation systems while observing all appropriate pandemic protocols. At this review, the Lucy team demonstrated to an independent senior review board, including NASA and external experts, that the systems and subsystems are on schedule to proceed to assembly, testing and integration. ...

[bystander]

Mission to the Trojan Asteroids Passes NASA Milestone
Southwest Research Institute | 2020 Aug 28

Engineers install Lucy’s oxidizer tank into the spacecraft structure in the high bay at Lockheed Mar-tin. The SwRI-led mission has entered the final stage of development before the spacecraft is sched-uled to launch in 2021. Credit: Lockheed Martin

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NASA has approved the final development stage of the Southwest Research Institute-led Lucy mission to explore the Trojan asteroids in preparation for its October 2021 launch.

The space agency’s approval follows independent reviews of the spacecraft, instruments, schedule and budget. This milestone, known as Key Decision Point-D (KDP-D), represents the official transition from final design and fabrication (Phase C) to systems delivery, testing, assembly and integration (Phase D). During this part of the mission’s life cycle the design and fabrication of the spacecraft is completed, and the instruments are integrated into the spacecraft and tested. The spacecraft will then be shipped next summer to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for integration with the launch vehicle. ...

Assembly, Testing and Launch Operations (ATLO) began on schedule at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado. ...

The oxidizer tank has been integrated with the spacecraft, and the instruments will be delivered to Lockheed Martin starting in October. All spacecraft assembly and testing will occur at the Colorado facility in preparation for the launch window opening on October 16, 2021.

After launch, Lucy will still have a long path ahead flying out to the distance of Jupiter to make close fly-bys past a record-breaking number of asteroids. The spacecraft will encounter the first of its eight targets, a main belt asteroid, in 2025. Lucy will reach the first of seven Trojan asteroids in 2027 and fly past the final binary pair in 2033.

Lucy’s next major milestone is the Mission Operation Review scheduled for October 2020, which assesses the project’s operational readiness and its progress towards launch. At that time, the mission will demonstrate that its navigation, planning, command and science operations requirements are complete. ...

[bystander]

It is important to note that in 2015, in addition to the Lucy mission, the Psyche mission was approved. The launch of the device of the same name was originally scheduled for 2023. In February 2019, SpaceX assured that it would be able to launch Lucy itself, but after a month it lost interest in the project.

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Psyche/Lucy mission

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It is important to note that in 2015, in addition to the Lucy mission, the Psyche mission was approved. The launch of the device of the same name was originally scheduled for 2023. In February 2019, SpaceX assured that it would be able to launch Lucy itself, but after a month it lost interest in the project.

viewtopic.php?t=36703#p292931

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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

<<617 Patroclus (pə-TROH-kləs; Ancient Greek: Πάτροκλος Pátroklos "glory of the father") is a large binary Jupiter trojan asteroid. It is a dark D-type asteroid and a slow rotator, due to the 103-hour orbital period of its two components. It is one of five Jovian asteroids targeted by the Lucy space probe, and is scheduled for a flyby in 2033. This minor planet was named after the legendary Greek hero Patroclus. Friend and lover of Achilles, he was killed by Hector during the Trojan War.

Patroclus was discovered on 17 October, 1906, by astronomer August Kopff at the Heidelberg Observatory in Germany, and was named after Patroclus in Greek mythology. There are at least three pronunciations of the name 'Patroclus' in English. Because the penultimate syllable is light in Latin prose (pă′.trŏ.clŭs), the antepenult was stressed in Latin and would normally be stressed in English as well, for /ˈpæ.trə.kləs/ (analogous to 'Sophocles'). However, for metrical convenience, Alexander Pope had made the 'o' long, and thus stressed, in his translation of Homer, following a convention of Greek and Latin verse, and that pronunciation – of Latin pa.trō′.clus – has stuck, for English /pə.ˈtroʊ.kləs/. Moreover, because in prose a penultimate Greco-Latin short o (omicron) would only be stressed in a closed syllable, the penult has sometimes been misanalysed as being closed (*pă.trŏc′.lŭs), which would change the English o to a short vowel: /pə.ˈtrɒk.ləs/

Patroclus was long thought to be one of the largest Jupiter trojans, with a diameter on the order of 150 km. However, in 2001 it was discovered to be a binary asteroid of two similarly sized objects. The name Patroclus is now assigned to the larger component, some 110–115 km in diameter, while the secondary, slightly smaller at 100–105 km in diameter, has been named [for Patroclus's father, former Argonaut] Menoetius (mə-NEE-shəs). This was the first discovery of a binary trojan asteroid. Patroclus and its moon Menoetius are the only objects in the Trojan camp to be named after Greek rather than Trojan characters. The naming conventions for the Jupiter trojans were not adopted until after Patroclus was named (similarly, the asteroid Hektor is the only Trojan character to appear in the Greek camp).

Because the density of the components (0.88 g/cm³) is less than water and about one third that of rock, it was suggested that the Patroclus system, previously thought to be a pair of rocky asteroids, is more similar to a comet in composition. It is suspected that many Jupiter trojans are in fact small planetesimals captured in the Lagrange point of the Jupiter–Sun system during the migration of the giant planets 3.9 billion years ago.>>

Tagish Lake meteorite fragment

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<<D-type asteroids have a very low albedo and a featureless reddish spectrum. It has been suggested that they have a composition of organic-rich silicates, carbon and anhydrous silicates, possibly with water ice in their interiors. D-type asteroids are found in the outer asteroid belt and beyond; examples are 152 Atala, and 944 Hidalgo as well as the majority of Jupiter trojans. It has been suggested that the Tagish Lake meteorite was a fragment from a D-type asteroid, and that the Martian moon Phobos is closely related.

The Tagish Lake meteorite fell at 16:43 UTC on 18 January 2000 in the Tagish Lake area in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. Following the reported sighting of a fireball in southern Yukon and northern British Columbia, Canada, more than 500 fragments of the meteorite were collected from the lake's frozen surface. Most of the stony, carbonaceous fragments landed on the Taku Arm of the lake, coming to rest on the lake's frozen surface. The passage of the fireball and the high-altitude explosion set off a wide array of satellite sensors as well as seismographs.

The local inhabitants described the smell in the air following the airburst as sulfurous. The Tagish Lake meteoroid is estimated to have been 4 meters in diameter and 56 tonnes in weight before it entered the Earth's atmosphere. However, it is estimated that only 1.3 tonnes remained after ablation in the upper atmosphere and several fragmentation events, meaning that around 97% of the meteorite had vaporised, mainly becoming stratospheric dust that was seen as noctilucent clouds to the northwest of Edmonton at sunset, some 12 hours after the event.>>

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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

• Troilus and Cressida : Act V, Scene 2

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Ulysses: May worthy Troilus be half attach'd

• With that which here his passion doth express?

Troilus: Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well

• In characters as red as Mars his heart.

[Lariliss]

It is great that the Lucy mission is going correct.

Pioneering for the space always has huge potential.
Special missions bring precious data.

And what is great, that with smaller ones we go from breakthroughs to routines. While it took 60 years for satellites become a daily thing.
It takes couple decades or less for landing asteroids to take it's steps forward to become a regular thing. More countries are following US and Japan. UAE is going for it.

Combining the cooperative data from all the missions will make a huge leap for our understanding of the Solar system, hence safety and understanding of the future.

It is not of big surprise, that other countries go after the leaders:
1. What leaders are doing is numerous tests and refinements until the process is ready to go.
2. Any big project involves many countries' cooperation for the effectiveness of testing and production.
What is once a breakthrough becomes a routine sooner or later. Nowadays as soon as possible.