The goal of the Lucy mission is simple: get close enough to eight of the so-called “Trojan asteroids” to snap photos and beam them back to NASA. Those images could verify long-held suspicions by scientists that the Trojan asteroids are peppered with organic material—the building blocks of life.
Lucy’s flybys are tricky, to say the least. Two clusters of Trojan asteroids accompany Jupiter in its wide orbit around the sun. One cluster travels ahead of Jupiter. The other trails behind. Getting a single spacecraft close enough—600 miles or so—to scan the asteroids requires a mind-boggling series of maneuvers. The whole scheme demands perfect timing.
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