Lucy

Mission Profile

Prime Contractors

Companies that built, launched, or operate this mission. Tickers link to their investor profile.

• LMTLockheed Martin
• Southwest Research Institute
• United Launch Alliance
• NOCNorthrop Grumman

Overview

Lucy is NASA's mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids — two swarms of small primitive bodies trapped at Jupiter's L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. Launched in October 2021, Lucy is the first mission to visit the Trojans, which are believed to be planetesimals from the outer Solar System captured into resonance with Jupiter early in solar-system history and preserved largely unchanged ever since. Over its 12-year primary mission Lucy will fly past one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojans — more asteroids than any previous spacecraft. The first flyby, a bonus target added to the trajectory mid-cruise, was main-belt asteroid Dinkinesh in November 2023, where Lucy discovered a small natural satellite (now named Selam) and revealed an unexpected contact-binary structure. A 2025 main-belt flyby of Donaldjohanson set up the first Trojan encounter, Eurybates, in August 2027, with the encounters of Polymele, Leucus, Orus, and the binary Patroclus-Menoetius following through 2033. Lucy is named after the famed Lucy fossil because, like its namesake, the spacecraft is meant to illuminate origins — in this case, the origins of the Solar System itself.

Key Milestones

1. 2021-10-16

   Launch on Atlas V from Cape Canaveral

2. 2022-10-16

   First Earth gravity-assist flyby

3. 2023-11-01

   Dinkinesh flyby (discovers moon Selam)

4. 2025-04-20

   Donaldjohanson flyby (planned)

5. 2027-08-12

   Eurybates flyby — first Trojan encounter

6. 2033-03-03

   Patroclus-Menoetius binary flyby — final encounter

Related Missions

Sources

1. NASA — Lucy
2. SwRI — Lucy Mission