NASA's Lucy spacecraft is on its way to explore the Trojan asteroids after launching from Cape Canaveral on October NUMBER_TOKEN. The Trojan asteroids are thought to be an undisturbed population of fossils leftover from the formation of our Solar System. And that's why the Lucy spacecraft was named after the famed hominid Fossil, discovered in Ethiopia in NUMBER_TOKEN. Just as Lucy, the Fossil advanced our understanding of human evolution. Lucy the spacecraft aims to advance our understanding of the Solar System's evolution. To that end, Lucy will fly past seven of the Trojan asteroids, which are trapped in Jupiter's Lagrange points. Along its way out to the Trojans, Lucy will pass a small asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. And that makes for a mission total of eight asteroid flybys - more than any spacecraft has attempted before. At least that's the plan. But shortly after it separated from its rocket on October NUMBER_TOKEN, one of Lucy's two solar arrays failed to deploy and latch into place. The arrays are designed to unfurl like a pair of Chinese fans. Controllers got a confirmation signal that the first array fully deployed and latched, but they never received a similar confirmation about the second array. NASA's said in a statement that it looks like the second array only partially unfurled, but it's otherwise generating almost as much power as the fully deployed wing. So the good news is that the spacecraft is safe and it's getting all the power it needs for the moment. Because Lucy is drifting further away from Earth each day, it needs to be able to autonomously point its solar arrays toward the Sun. So the spacecraft was transitioned from its initial safe mode into its cruise mode. But Lucy will need to fire its main engine several more times over the course of its mission in order to stay on a very complex flight path. So naturally, the mission team would like to get that array fully deployed and locked before Lucy begins any of its main maneuvers. At this point, you might be wondering, Well, why didn't they just use a radioisotope thermoelectric generator like they did for the Cassini mission at Saturn and New Horizons at Pluto? Well, the Lucy mission was originally conceived as being powered by an RTG, but RTGs are dangerous, and NASA would rather not take a chance on a rocket exploding in the atmosphere and scattering toxic plutonium everywhere if they could avoid it. Fortunately, solar panel technology has come a long way. Juno demonstrated that a solar powered spacecraft can operate as far as Jupiter's orbit. As for Lucy, chances are they'll command it to redeploy its second wing and see if it latches into place. Right now, though, mission controllers are still analyzing the telemetry to verify that they fully understand just exactly what the problem is before they take any further action. So while they're figuring that out, I thought we'd take a closer look at the Lucy mission, learn more about the Trojan asteroids, and understand how the solar array problem may or may not impact the mission. But first, I'd like to thank Magellan TV, who are very kindly sponsoring today's video. We are at the forefront of a modern day gold rush,
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN But first, I'd like to thank Magellan TV, who are very kindly sponsoring today's video. We are at the forefront of a modern day gold rush, END_SPONSOR_TOKEN