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Lucy

Lucy is NASA's first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, remnants of early planet formation that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Its flyby campaign includes three main-belt asteroids and eight Trojan asteroids, using observations of different bodies to investigate how the outer planets formed and evolved. Early encounters at Dinkinesh in 2023 and Donaldjohanson in 2025 provided science and operational experience before the planned first Trojan encounter at Eurybates and its satellite Queta in August 2027.

Lucy
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Identity

Aliases
Lucy missionLucy Trojan asteroid mission
Name
Lucy
Status
active

Details

Astronauts
-
Description
Lucy is NASA's first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, remnants of early planet formation that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Its flyby campaign includes three main-belt asteroids and eight Trojan asteroids, using observations of different bodies to investigate how the outer planets formed and evolved. Early encounters at Dinkinesh in 2023 and Donaldjohanson in 2025 provided science and operational experience before the planned first Trojan encounter at Eurybates and its satellite Queta in August 2027.
Destination
Three main-belt asteroid flybys including Dinkinesh and Donaldjohanson, followed by eight Jupiter Trojan asteroid flybys sharing Jupiter’s orbit; 11 asteroids in total and the first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojans
Launch Site
Outcome
Lucy completed its Dinkinesh and Donaldjohanson asteroid encounters and continues its planned cruise toward the Jupiter Trojan flybys.
Programs
Start Date
2021-10-16
Vehicle Families

Links

Official Url
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/lucy/

Assets & Meta

Creation Time
July 31, 2026 at 22:00:57 UTC
Updated Time
October 29, 2026 at 13:12:11 UTC
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