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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
NASA\u2019s Lucy spacecraft has its next flyby target, the small main belt asteroid\u00a0 Donaldjohanson, in its sights. By blinking between images captured by Lucy on Feb. 20 and 22, this animation shows the perceived motion of Donaldjohanson relative to the background stars as the spacecraft rapidly approaches the asteroid.<\/p>\n
![\"Animation](\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/dj-firstrelease-v2.gif\")
<\/a><\/figure>Lucy<\/a> will pass within 596 miles (960 km) of the 2-mile-wide asteroid on April 20. This second asteroid encounter for the Lucy spacecraft will serve as a dress-rehearsal for the spacecraft\u2019s main targets, the never-before-explored Jupiter Trojan asteroids<\/a>. Lucy already successfully observed the tiny main belt asteroid Dinkinesh and its contact-binary moon, Selam<\/a>, in November 2023. Lucy will continue to image Donaldjohanson over the next two months as part of its optical navigation program, which uses the asteroid\u2019s apparent position against the star background to ensure an accurate flyby.<\/p>\n Donaldjohanson will remain an unresolved point of light during the spacecraft\u2019s long approach and won\u2019t start to show surface detail until the day of the encounter.<\/p>\n From a distance of 45 million miles (70 million km), Donaldjohanson is still dim, though it stands out clearly in this field of relatively faint stars in the constellation of Sextans. Celestial north is to the right of the frame, and the 0.11-degree field of view would correspond to 85,500 miles (140,000 km) at the distance of the asteroid. In the first of the two images, another dim asteroid can be seen photobombing in the lower right quadrant of the image. However, just as the headlights of an approaching car often appear relatively stationary, Donaldjohanson\u2019s apparent motion between these two images is much smaller than that of this interloper, which has moved out of the field of view in the second image.<\/p>\n These observations were made by Lucy\u2019s high-resolution camera, the L\u2019LORRI instrument \u2014 short for Lucy LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager \u2014 provided by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.<\/p>\n Asteroid Donaldjohanson is named for anthropologist Donald Johanson, who discovered the fossilized skeleton \u2014 called \u201cLucy\u201d \u2014 of a human ancestor. NASA\u2019s Lucy mission is named for the fossil.<\/p>\n Lucy\u2019s principal investigator, Hal Levison, is based out of the Boulder, Colorado, branch of Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio. NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Lucy is the 13th mission in NASA\u2019s Discovery Program. NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.<\/p>\n For more information about NASA\u2019s Lucy mission, visit:<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/lucy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n By Katherine Kretke Media Contact:<\/em><\/strong>
Southwest Research Institute<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
Nancy N. Jones<\/em><\/strong><\/a>
NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, Greenbelt, Md.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nShare<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n