Atlas V 401 | Lucy #shorts

United Launch Alliance (ULA) will launch the Lucy Trojan Explorer mission atop an Atlas V to the Trojan asteroid belt. The Atlas V will lift off from Space Launch Complex 41, at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida, in its 401 configuration: a 4 meter fairing, 0 solid rocket motors (SRMs), and one RL-10 on the second stage. Lucy is a planned 12-year mission that will explore the Trojan asteroid belt, which is located around Jupiter.

What is the Lucy mission?
Lucy will be the first mission of its kind, and is set to explore seven asteroids around Jupiter’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points and one asteroid in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft will be used to study the formation of the solar system, as it is believed that the Trojan asteroids are remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets in the solar system.

The Lucy spacecraft will has several main instruments. Lucy’s LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) is a high spatial resolution visible imager that will provide highly detailed images of the Trojan asteroid surfaces. It is similar to the LORRI instrument used on the New Horizons spacecraft.

Lucy is also equipped with a way to detect and measure radiation; Lucy’s Thermal Emission Spectrometer (L’TES) will be used to detect radiation from each asteroid, which helps scientists learn more about their composition and how they formed. The L’TES instrument is based off of the thermal emission spectrometer that flew on OSIRIS-REx.

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