NASA unfolds stalled wing of Lucy spacecraft

NASA has further deployed a stalled solar panel wing of the Lucy spacecraft. There were problems with that before. The organization decided to use both the main and backup engines to pull free a stuck lanyard.

In a blog post writes NASA how it spent months researching the problem of the jammed wing and how to solve it. There was a scenario on the table in which the problem would be ignored, as both wings reportedly generated more than 90 percent of the spacecraft’s power needs. In a second scenario, a jammed lanyard would be pulled harder; this by using both the main engine and the back-up engine at the same time.

According to the American space agency, this was a risk because both engines were not intended to work together. To avoid potential damage, a team began conducting tests and once that was complete, it was decided to try and pull the jammed lanyard free. That plan also succeeded. NASA estimates that the wing is almost fully deployed and under tension enough that the spacecraft should be able to continue the mission in a stable manner.

NASA launched the unmanned spacecraft, Lucy, in October 2021. The probe will study the Donaldjohanson asteroid and then the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. The mission will reportedly last twelve years. Shortly after launch the US space agency noted that one of the two wings with solar panels had not fully unfolded.