Planetary Science
Lucy
Lucy is NASA's first mission to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. It launched on an Atlas V 401 on 16 October 2021. It is scheduled to encounter Eurybates and its satellite Queta in August 2027 and Polymele and its satellite in September 2027, followed by Leucus (April 2028), Orus (November 2028) and the Patroclus-Menoetius pair (2033). It carries three science instruments.
- Operator
- NASA (Southwest Research Institute leads the science team)
- Launch vehicle
- Atlas V 401
- Launch site
- Cape Canaveral, Florida
- Target orbit
- Heliocentric; a tour of the Jupiter Trojan asteroid swarms
- Schedule
- The Lucy team's Eurybates page lists closest approach on August 11, 2027 at 20:16 UTC (14:16 MDT), within about 1,000 km. Other official pages give August 12, 2027, so this site gives the month and cites the 20:16 UTC time to its source. Polymele is listed for September 15, 2027.
Instruments and payloads
- L'LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager)
- L'Ralph (spectrometer and camera)
- L'TES (Thermal Emission Spectrometer)
Primary source: lucy.swri.edu. Facts checked on 2026-10-10. Dates are the operator's targets and can change; this page does not report launch outcomes.