Lucy was launched from Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on October 16, 2021, atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.
The expedition is named after a preserved human ancestor named 'Lucy' by her discoverers, whose skeleton revealed new information about humanity's evolution. Similarly, Lucy will change our understanding of planetary genesis and Solar System creation.
Lucy is currently in route to Earth, where it will receive a gravity assist on October 16, 2022, to aid in its voyage to the Trojan asteroids.
"While total lunar eclipses aren't uncommon - they happen once or twice a year or so," Lucy lead investigator Dr. Hal Levison, a researcher at Southwest Research Institute, stated.
"Everyone was ecstatic when we found out Lucy would be able to see the May 15-16 lunar eclipse as part of the equipment calibration process."
From 8:40 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. CDT on May 15, Lucy's high-resolution black-and-white camera, L'LORRI, took 86 1-millisecond exposures to generate a time-lapse film of the first part of the total lunar eclipse.
"Capturing these photographs was truly a team effort," said Dr. John Spencer, Lucy's acting deputy principle investigator at Southwest Research Institute.
"To acquire this data, the instrument, guidance, navigation, and science operations teams had to work together to get the Earth and the Moon in the same frame."
"And all of this had to be done while the spacecraft was operating in a very difficult environment."
Lucy was meant to function at the Trojans, which is more than five times further away from the Sun than it is presently.
To avoid overheating the spacecraft, the spacecraft only saw the first half of the eclipse due to the significantly warmer temperature environment.
 from Earth – about 70% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.){kind=link}
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