Now we don’t know what they’re made out of. Essentially those pieces of wood, brick and glass, when the solar system was first built are essentially stuck there. And in those deep gravity wells, some of those original building blocks for the solar system have been trapped for four billion years. That’s a little bit ahead of Jupiter’s orbit and a little bit behind. And so there’s a L4 of the Lagrange point and L5 of the Lagrange point. There’s these things called Lagrange points, which are gravitational residences between two large bodies and the sun and Jupiter are pretty large bodies. Explore those, so we understand how the solar system formed. We want to find those little bits of leftover original building blocks. And that’s what we want to understand for how the solar system formed. What really helps you understand how the house was actually built is during the construction phase, looking at those leftover scraps, the pieces of wood or brick or glass that are outside in the big dumpster that eventually gets hauled off before the house is completed. The way I like to describe it to people is when you’re looking at a house, a beautiful structure house with the amazing architecture, you don’t necessarily know what went into building that house. And the best way to help understand those solar system formation processes, both for our solar system, as well as exoplanets, is to look at those leftover building blocks. ![]() And what we want to understand with Lucy is we want to help understand how the solar system formed. ![]() Sekerak: Well, the Trojan asteroids are the remnants of the giant planet formation. Host: What are the science objectives of Lucy? So we’ll be crisscrossing the solar system over approximately 12-year mission, going inner solar system and outer solar system to get this unprecedented science. And then 2033, we come back after another Earth gravity assist, we visit the binary asteroid in the L5 swarm. And then from 2027 through ’28, we then explore four of the L4 Trojan swarm asteroids that are resonant with Jupiter. And then in 2025 is when we encounter the Donaldjohanson Main Belt asteroid. ![]() And about two years after that another Earth gravity assist. We launch really shortly, and we do one Earth gravity assist about a year later. Over that time, we’re going to be visiting eight different asteroids with just our single spacecraft. Lucy’s going to be on this extraordinarily exciting journey throughout the solar system over the next approximately 12 years after we launch here in October. Could you begin with a general overview of the mission? Host: Let’s start out talking Lucy science and then dig into the engineering achievements for the mission. Sekerak: Oh, Deana, a pleasure to be here. We’re in conversation with Mike Sekerak, the Deputy Project Systems Engineer for the Lucy Mission. NASA’s Lucy Mission - the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids - is scheduled to launch this month, with the first opportunity coming the morning of October 16. We will eventually take the crown from Juno for being the furthest solar-powered mission that’s ever been flown.ĭeana Nunley (Host): Welcome back to Small Steps, Giant Leaps, a NASA APPEL Knowledge Services podcast where we tap into project experiences to share best practices, lessons learned and novel ideas. And this will be the first spacecraft that actually does that in real life, which is exciting. Mike Sekerak: It’s about the discoveries that are totally unexpected.Īs kind of a science fiction romantic, I always love reading about stories of sending spacecraft all over the solar system - out and back and out and back. Science Mission & Systems: Design & Operations (APPEL-vSMSDO) Space Launch and Transportation System (APPEL-vSLTS) Tactical Skills for Creating High Performance Teams (APPEL-vCHPT) NASA Lucy Mission’s Message to the Futureįrom Soldier to Scientist, Mike Sekerak Brings Leadership Skills to Goddard
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