Checking in on the cameras of NASA’s asteroids-bound Lucy spacecraft

On Feb. 14, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which is within the first few months of its journey to the Trojan asteroids, obtained a collection of calibration photos with its 4 visible-light cameras. The first check photos have been taken in November 2021, shortly after Lucy’s Oct. 16, 2021, launch, however the February check was far more in depth. Lucy used its Instrument Pointing Platform to level at 11 totally different star fields to check digicam efficiency and sensitivity, in addition to the spacecraft’s means to level precisely in numerous instructions.

The 4 cameras are the dual Terminal Tracking Cameras (T2CAM), the Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), and the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI). The T2CAM cameras have a large area of view, 11 levels by 8.2 levels, and are primarily used to mechanically lock onto and monitor the Trojan asteroids throughout Lucy’s shut flybys, making certain that the spacecraft’s different devices are pointed on the goal. MVIC, a part of the L’Ralph instrument, is a higher-resolution coloration scanning digicam that may scan its 8.3-degree-tall area of view throughout as large a swath as desired, very like the panoramas taken by a cell phone digicam. L’LORRI is a high-resolution monochromatic telephoto digicam with a slender 0.29-degree-square area of view and can get hold of Lucy’s most detailed photos of its asteroid targets.

The check didn’t embody Lucy’s infrared spectrometer LEISA (additionally a part of the L’Ralph instrument) or its temperature mapping L’TES instrument, which requires close-up planetary targets to acquire helpful knowledge.