LUCY
Mission type Multiple flyby
Operator NASA
Launch date 16 October 2021
Target Trojan asteroids
Arrival at target 2027
Primary objective To explore one mainbelt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids
Status In progress
Harold ‘Hal’ Levison
Lucy principal investigator
The Lucy mission is led by principal investigator Harold ‘Hal’ Levison from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He specialises in the formation and long-term behaviour of Solar System bodies, including comets, Kuiper belt objects and the Trojan asteroids.
Lucy is a NASA probe scheduled to launch on 16 October 2021. It will be the first-ever mission to explore a set of asteroids near Jupiter known as the Trojan asteroids. These ancient space rocks hold important clues to the creation of our Solar System and possibly the origin of life on Earth.
Along with a mission called Psyche, Lucy was approved in January fossil found in Ethiopia that, as a relative of modern humans, helped illuminate the evolution of our species. It’s hoped that the spacecraft will similarly elucidate our Solar System’s earliest days.
