Just just a few hours into its 12-year journey to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, the Lucy spacecraft bumped into an issue. One of its photo voltaic arrays refused to completely open and mission controllers have been engaged on the issue ever since. There’s excellent news to report, nevertheless, because the group seems to have made a breakthrough.

Since Lucy’s launch in October 2021, NASA engineers have been making an attempt to completely open and latch the spacecraft’s cussed photo voltaic array. After seven trials, the photo voltaic array is now between 353 levels and 357 levels open out of a full 360 levels. It’s nonetheless not an ideal circle, however NASA says this configuration is nice sufficient for Lucy to hold on with its mission.

Lucy is tasked with an unprecedented mission to discover the Trojan asteroids, two teams of rocky our bodies that lead and comply with Jupiter because it orbits the Sun. In order to outlive its lengthy journey by area, Lucy is supplied with two large photo voltaic arrays on both aspect, every spanning 22-feet large (7 meters). The arrays had been tucked in throughout Lucy’s preliminary trip to area on board an Atlas V rocket and designed to later unfurl like a pair of large hand followers. During deployment, nevertheless, one among Lucy’s photo voltaic arrays obtained caught at 347 levels. Ground controllers anxious that the array could be additional broken when it got here time for the spacecraft to fireside its major engine.

Lucy’s anomaly response group got here collectively inside hours of the malfunction, working collectively to give you a plan. “We have an incredibly talented team, but it was important to give them time to figure out what happened and how to move forward,” Hal Levison, Lucy’s principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, mentioned in a statement. “Fortunately, the spacecraft was where it was supposed to be, functioning nominally, and—most importantly—safe. We had time.”

The group brainstormed collectively for months and at last got here up with two doable options: Either maintain the array at 347 levels or begin pulling on the array’s lanyard through the use of the spacecraft’s backup motor. But group members needed to first assess the dangers related to each choices and proceed accordingly. They constructed a duplicate of the backup motor and examined the duplicate past its restrict on the bottom to see how it might deal with the unfurling efforts in area.

G/O Media could get a fee

40% Off

Amazon Fire 65″ 4K Smart TV

Looks good
Aside from being 65″ in measurement, this TV gives UHD 4K visuals that are a relentless feast for the eyes, options HDR to be sure you can recognize the complete vary of colours and contrasts, and it additionally lets you use it as a hub for your whole streaming companies.

Following months of operating simulations, NASA determined that it might try and totally deploy Lucy’s arrays by a collection of intricate maneuvers and instructions despatched over to the spacecraft whereas it was 60 million miles (96 million kilometers) away from Earth.

On May 9, mission management commanded Lucy to deploy the array, operating its main and backup motors concurrently for a collection of brief intervals to keep away from overheating. The group then paused to research the info earlier than a second try on May 12, when the identical instructions had been transmitted once more. After seven trials of pulling the lanyard throughout the months of May and June, Lucy’s photo voltaic array is now between 353 levels and 357 levels open. “While the array is not fully latched, it is under substantially more tension, making it stable enough for the spacecraft to operate as needed for mission operations,” NASA wrote in an announcement.

Lucy is gearing up for its first gravity help in October 2022, the place it would fly previous Earth to be able to use the planet’s gravity to tug on the spacecraft, thereby altering its orbital trajectory past the orbit of Mars. We’re rooting for you, Lucy. Even in case your array is just a few levels off.

More: Debris From China’s Uncontrolled Rocket Crashed Near Populated Areas.