NEW YORK, BRONX (ORDO News) — After an encounter with a small main belt asteroid, Dinkinesh, NASA‘s Lucy spacecraft successfully communicated, confirming its good technical condition.
The spacecraft’s operations team gave the command to begin transmitting the data collected during the meeting to Earth, which will take up to a week. This event marked the first test of a high-speed in-flight asteroid encounter for Lucy.
Dinkinesh, a small inner main belt asteroid, is a critical test for the Lucy Terminal tracking system. Despite being 10 to 100 times smaller than the Jupiter Trojan asteroids that are the mission’s primary targets, the encounter provides valuable insight into the spacecraft’s capabilities.
Lucy’s closest approach to Dinkinesh occurred at 12:54 EDT (16:54 UTC), bringing the spacecraft within 270 miles (430 km) of the asteroid. However, due to the asteroid’s high speed (10,000 mph, 4.5 km/s), the observation time of Dinkinesh at this distance was limited.
Two hours before rendezvous, the spacecraft and the instrument pointing platform (IUP), which carries Lucy’s science instruments, were placed in rendezvous configuration.
During this period, the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna is pointed towards the Earth, which prevents data transmission until the end of the meeting.
The Lucy Long Range Imaging Instrument (L’LORRI), provided by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, began taking a series of images every 15 minutes shortly after entering the encounter configuration.
Since the beginning of September, L’LORRI was able to detect Dinkinesh as a single point of light, which helped in the navigation of the spacecraft. At a distance of just under 20,000 miles (30,000 km), Dinkinesh appears as a few pixels, barely visible on camera.
Dr. Harold F. Levison, principal investigator for the Lucy mission at Southwest Research Institute, shared his excitement about the successful meeting: “The data collected during the first flight test will provide valuable insights into Lucy’s performance and will help us improve our strategies for future asteroid encounters.”
Dr. Kathy Olkin, Deputy Principal Investigator for the Lucy mission from Southwest Research Institute, emphasized the importance of the terminal tracking system: “The ability of the spacecraft and IPP to autonomously track Dinkinesh throughout the encounter is critical to obtaining detailed observations. This test will determine our approach to studying larger Trojan asteroids.”
Lucy Mission Background
The Lucy mission, named after the fossilized human ancestor “Lucy”, aims to study the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. These asteroids are remnants of the early solar system and provide insight into the formation of planets. By visiting several Trojan asteroids, Lucy will reveal valuable information about the history of our solar system.
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News agencies contributed to this report, edited and published by ORDO News editors.
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