Atmospheric Physics Building,Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU
Jon Pineau, NASA’s Lucy Mission Science Operations Center Encounter Lead (Stellar Solutions, Southwest Research Institute) also AOPP Visiting Academic
Andrea Simpson (andrea.simpson@physics.ox.ac.uk)
Abstract - In this talk I will discuss science operational considerations when visiting the small and dark remnants of planet formation - asteroids, comets, and KBOs. The focus will be NASA’s Lucy Mission, which is the first mission to visit the Trojan Asteroids. Lucy’s unique onboard tracking cameras, which allow for autonomous target tracking that increases pointing accuracy and drastically improves the science return for fast encounter or data-limited missions, will be discussed. This system, which was recently proven during the Lucy mission's first asteroid flyby of main belt asteroid Dinkinesh and its moon Selam, will be presented along with some of the science discoveries it enabled. Observing techniques from other small-body encounter missions will also be discussed including KBOs with New Horizons and comets with Rosetta. Finally, we’ll look ahead at the next Lucy encounter of main belt asteroid DonaldJohanson that occurs on April 20th 2025.