NASA allows stalled wing of Lucy spacecraft to unfold

NASA has further unfolded 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 motors to free a stuck lanyard.

In a blog post writes NASA how it spent months researching the jammed wing problem and how to solve it. There was a scenario on the table where one would ignore the shortcoming because both wings reportedly generated more than 90 percent of the power supply for the spacecraft. In a second scenario, a stuck lanyard would be pulled harder; this by using both the main engine and the backup engine at the same time.

According to the American space agency, this posed a risk because both engines were not intended to work together. To avoid potential damage, a team began conducting tests and once those were over, it was decided to try to pull the jammed lanyard free. That plan also worked. NASA estimates that the wing is nearly fully deployed and under enough tension to allow the spacecraft to continue its mission stably.

NASA launched the unmanned spacecraft, Lucy, in October 2021. The probe is to study the Donaldjohanson asteroid and then the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. The mission is said to last 12 years. Shortly after launch the US space agency noted that one of the two wings with solar panels had not fully unfolded.