2021/04/09 by C. B. Olkin, Olkin, Catherine B., Harold F. Levison +41 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Planetary Science and Exploration #Space exploration and regulation
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2104.04575
openalex publication_date 2021/04/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Lucy Mission accomplishes its science during a series of five flyby\nencounters with seven Trojan asteroid targets. This mission architecture drives\na concept of operations design that maximizes science return, provides\nredundancy in observations where possible, features autonomous fault protection\nand utilizes onboard target tracking near closest approach. These design\nconsiderations reduce risk during the relatively short time-critical periods\nwhen science data is collected. The payload suite consists of a color camera\nand infrared imaging spectrometer, a high-resolution panchromatic imager, and a\nthermal infrared spectrometer. The mission design allows for concurrent\nobservations of all instruments. Additionally, two spacecraft subsystems will\nalso contribute to the science investigations: the Terminal Tracking Cameras\nwill obtain wide field-of-view imaging near closest approach to determine the\nshape of each of the Trojan targets and the telecommunication subsystem will\ncarry out Doppler tracking of the spacecraft to determine the mass of each of\nthe Trojan targets.\n