Launch of NASA’s Lucy Mission to Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids

Set a reminder: Our Lucy mission is scheduled to launch on Sat., Oct. 16 at 5:34 a.m. EDT (9:34 UTC) to ancient asteroids called Trojans. The Trojan asteroids are rocky worlds as old as our solar system, and they share an orbit with Jupiter around the Sun. They’re thought to be remnants of the primordial material that formed the outer planets. On Oct. 16, NASA’s Lucy mission is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to explore these small worlds for the first time. Lucy was named after the fossilized human ancestor (called “Lucy“ by her discoverers) whose skeleton expanded our understanding of human evolution. The Lucy Mission hopes to expand our understanding of solar system evolution by visiting these planetary “fossils.“