Lucy, Discovery Mission 13 - a grand tour of the Jupiter Trojans Options

[Brian Swift]

Here are the first Lucy images (movies, in fact) of four of our five primary Trojan asteroid targets:

NASA image release

And a camera-shy asteroid scooting out of frame in the upper left of 4th video.

[john_s]

Here's our first view of Lucy's first asteroid target, Dinkinesh. Only 49 days till encounter!

John

[jasedm]

Thanks for the update John, I was checking in on Lucy's progress only yesterday.

Can anyone advise on the sort of visible resolution to be expected during closest approach? Will it be Mathilde/Steins/Arrakoth standard of resolution? (I guess with LORRI heritage it may be substantially better)

It will be exciting if the terminal tracking system pans out as expected.

Fingers crossed for a successful encounter for all those involved.

Another awesome mission!

[Explorer1]

Some details on resolution estimates here (PDF)

If all goes well, we expect to obtain 2 m/pixel panchromatic images, 15 m/pixel color images, 24 m/pixel near-IR spectra, and thermal measurements, on what will be the smallest main-belt asteroid yet encountered by a spacecraft.

[jasedm]

Thanks for the link Explorer, this sounds awesome - can't wait!

[john_s]

an anyone advise on the sort of visible resolution to be expected during closest approach? Will it be Mathilde/Steins/Arrakoth standard of resolution?

To answer directly, we expect somewhat fewer pixels than the best Arrokoth images (maybe 500 pixels across, instead of 900), but much better exposed images, due to being at 2.3 AU rather than at 43 AU! In fact we have some risk of overexposure of the lowest-phase images. The Lucy LORRI camera has very similar performance to the New Horizons LORRI camera.

John

[mcaplinger]

It will be exciting if the terminal tracking system pans out as expected.

It will be more exciting (but not in a good way) if it doesn't.

[Roby72]

With Lucys first encounter coming very soon, a question about the solar power on board the spacecraft. I not know the latest status on the unfold process - is it now fully deployed yet or still not ?
Any info is appreciated !
Thx !

[Explorer1]

They decided not to bother any more in January. Over 98% is more than sufficient and unlikely to cause any problems.

[vjkane]

A journal paper on the L'Ralph instrument capabilities and implementation is available

L’Ralph: A Visible/Infrared Spectral Imager for the Lucy Mission to the Trojans

The paper is open access.

[Marcin600]

Only two days left until the asteroid Dinkinesh encounter (November 1, 12:54 p.m. EDT)
https://lucy.swri.edu/
https://whereislucy.space/
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/lucy/nasa...asteroid-flyby/

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[Hungry4info]

2 hours to go. Should a new thread be created for Dinkinesh?

[Marcin600]

Well, after a close-up. We have to wait another 2 hours until the antenna is turned towards Earth again and communication with Lucy is re-established. Then data transfer will start. When we receive them, we will know whether the asteroid tracking system worked properly and whether we have good images of Dinkinesh.
Two more links:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/lucy/
https://twitter.com/LucyMission

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[mcaplinger]

Down signal on DSS14 at 232 kb/sec.

[kenny]

Nice animation of the gyrations of Lucy to keep the instruments pointed at asteroid Dinkinesh.

Dinkinesh encounter animation