She also noted that the instruments on Lucy can gather data during its flybys while using just 82 watts of power.Īs the mission team continues to evaluate the state of the second solar array, engineers are working on other post-launch tasks as well. 'However, when we fly out to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, we only have about 500 watts of power, so that would only light a few lightbulbs in my living room and it wouldn't be enough to power up my microwave in the morning to warm up my coffee.' 'When we're near Earth, those wings have about 18,000 watts of power, so that would be equivalent to powering up my house and a couple of my neighbors,' Oakman said during the news conference. At Jupiter's orbital distance from our star, the sunlight is about 25 times weaker than what we experience near Earth, according to NASA.

That's not surprising, since Lucy's arrays are designed to power the spacecraft on much less sunlight than it's currently receiving. This power level is enough to keep the spacecraft healthy and functioning.' 'That solar array is generating nearly the expected power when compared to the fully deployed wing. 'The team continues to look at all available engineering data to establish how far it is deployed,' the statement continues. However, mission personnel are still working to determine precisely how open the troublesome array is. 'Analysis currently shows the second solar array is partially unfurled,' NASA officials wrote in the statement. 14) during a prelaunch news conference.Īnd it seems that on one solar array, one of those steps didn't quite go to plan.

'During deployment, there are literally thousands of tiny little mechanisms and flexures that are deploying those wings like a Chinese fan,' Katie Oakman, Lucy structures and mechanisms lead at Lockheed Martin Space, which built the spacecraft, said Thursday (Oct.

Engineers knew all along that the deployment process, which began about an hour after launch and took about 20 minutes to complete, would be challenging.

Space engineers star system asteroids