NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has a solar array that hasn’t fully deployed, and now, the team has had to pause their efforts to get the array into place.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft recently made a flyby of Earth, capturing some stunning images of our planet on its way to investigate the Trojan asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter. But Lucy has had some troubles in the form of a solar array that hasn’t fully deployed. Although issues with the array shouldn’t prevent the spacecraft from achieving its science goals, the team had hoped to fix the problem. But now, they have had to pause their efforts to get the array into place.
Lucy has two large round solar arrays which collect energy from the sun to power the spacecraft. These arrays were folded up for launch in October 2021, then deployed in a clock-like motion once the spacecraft was in space.
