LUCY, NASA

Trojan Asteroid Exploration

Launched on October 16th 2021, Lucy is the first mission to the Trojan Asteroids.
Mid-October, the probe started a long twelve-year journey to eight of Jupiter asteroids to understand solar system formation and evolution since the Big-Bang.
The probe will make multiple flybys of the Sun and the Earth to correct its trajectory to finally reach firstly the Trojan asteroids of Lagrange point L4.
After the exploration of the first asteroids, Lucy will perform a gravitational flyby around the Earth in order to get to the asteroids at Lagrange point L5.

Mission Objectives

• Understand the early phases, conditions and processes of the formation of the Solar System.
• Answer to the question: How did the giant gas planets aggregate and is there evidence of their changing orbits?
• To know the composition, the structure and the geology of Trojan asteroids.