NASA's Record-Breaking Lucy Spacecraft Has a New Asteroid Target - SciTechDaily

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft volition adhd different asteroid brushwood to its 4-billion-mile journey. On November 1, 2023, Lucy volition get a close-up presumption of a tiny main-belt asteroid to behaviour an engineering trial of the spacecraft’s innovative asteroid-tracking navigation system.

The Lucy ngo is already breaking records by readying to sojourn 9 asteroids during its 12-year circuit of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, which orbit the Sun astatine the aforesaid region arsenic Jupiter. Originally, Lucy was not scheduled to get a close-up presumption of immoderate asteroids until 2025, erstwhile it volition alert by the main loop asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson. However, the Lucy squad identified a small, as-yet unnamed asteroid successful the interior main belt, designated (152830) 1999 VD57, arsenic a imaginable caller and utile people for the Lucy spacecraft.

“There are millions of asteroids successful the main asteroid belt,” said Raphael Marschall, Lucy collaborator astatine the Nice Observatory successful France, who identified asteroid 1999 VD57 arsenic an entity of peculiar involvement for Lucy. “I selected 500,000 asteroids with well-defined orbits to spot if Lucy mightiness beryllium traveling adjacent capable to get a bully look astatine immoderate of them, adjacent from a distance. This asteroid truly stood out. Lucy’s trajectory arsenic primitively designed volition instrumentality it wrong 40,000 miles of the asteroid, astatine slightest 3 times person than the adjacent closest asteroid.”

The Lucy squad realized that, by adding a tiny maneuver, the spacecraft would beryllium capable to get an adjacent person look astatine this asteroid. So, connected January 24, the squad officially added it to Lucy’s circuit arsenic an engineering trial of the spacecraft’s pioneering terminal tracking system. This caller strategy solves a long-standing occupation for flyby missions: during a spacecraft’s attack to an asteroid, it is rather hard to find precisely however acold the spacecraft is from the asteroid, and precisely which mode to constituent the cameras.

“In the past, astir flyby missions person accounted for this uncertainty by taking a batch of images of the portion wherever the asteroid mightiness be, meaning debased ratio and tons of images of blank space,” said Hal Levison, Lucy main researcher from the Southwest Research Institute Boulder, Colorado office. “Lucy volition beryllium the archetypal flyby ngo to employment this innovative and analyzable strategy to automatically way the asteroid during the encounter. This caller strategy volition let the squad to instrumentality galore much images of the target.”

It turns retired that 1999 VD57 provides an fantabulous accidental to validate this never-before-flown procedure. The geometry of this encounter—particularly the space that the spacecraft approaches the asteroid comparative to the Sun—is precise akin to the mission’s planned Trojan asteroid encounters. This allows the squad to transportation retired a formal rehearsal nether akin conditions good successful beforehand of the spacecraft’s main technological targets.

This asteroid was not identified arsenic a people earlier due to the fact that it is highly small. In fact, 1999 VD57, estimated to beryllium a specified 0.4 miles (700 m) successful size, volition beryllium the smallest main loop asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft. It is overmuch much akin successful size to the near-Earth asteroids visited by caller NASA missions OSIRIS-REx and DART than to antecedently visited main loop asteroids.

The Lucy squad volition transportation retired a bid of maneuvers starting successful aboriginal May 2023 to spot the spacecraft connected a trajectory that volition walk astir 280 miles (450 km) from this tiny asteroid.

Lucy’s main researcher is based retired of the Boulder, Colorado subdivision of Southwest Research Institute, headquartered successful San Antonio, Texas. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center successful Greenbelt, Maryland, provides wide ngo management, systems engineering, and information and ngo assurance. Lockheed Martin Space successful Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Lucy is the 13th ngo successful NASA’s Discovery Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center successful Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate astatine NASA Headquarters successful Washington.