NASA's Lucy flew over Earth at close range on October 16 as part of a gravity-assisted exercise. Not long before the closest to Earth, the spacecraft took images of the Earth and the Moon. On October 15, 2022, at a distance of 380,000 miles (620,000 kilometers), NASA's Lucy spacecraft took an image of the Earth (which has been cropped) as part of the instrument's calibration work sequence. The upper left of the image
contains the scenery of Hada, Ethiopia, which is the location of fossils of human ancestors 3.2 million years ago, and the spacecraft is named after it.
Lucy is the first mission to explore the Jupiter Troy asteroid, a group of ancient asteroids orbiting the sun at the same distance as Jupiter. To reach these distant asteroids, the orbit of the Lucy spacecraft includes three Earth gravitational aids to push it to be able to be at enough speed during its long journey to these mysterious asteroids.
On October 13, 2022, NASA's Lucy spacecraft took images of the above-mentioned Earth and the Moon from a distance of 890,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers). This image was taken as part of an instrument calibration sequence when the spacecraft approached Earth for the first time in three gravitational boosts. These actions over Earth provide Lucy with the speed required to reach the Troy asteroid, which orbit the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter. Lucy will fly over a record-breaking number of asteroids during its 12-year journey, in the process, investigating their diversity , looking for clues to better understand the formation of the solar system.
Two images in this article were taken with Lucy's Terminal Tracking Camera (T2CAM) system, a pair of the same cameras responsible for tracking the asteroids during Lucy's high-speed encounter. The T2CAM system is designed, built and tested by Marin Space Science Systems; Lockheed-Martin integrates the T2CAM system into the Lucy spacecraft and operates it.
