
NASA's Lucy mission is ready to launch and explore never-before-seen asteroids
CNN
The first NASA mission to study Jupiter's asteroid swarms will launch at 5:34 a.m. ET on October 16. Lucy is the first spacecraft designed to visit the Trojan asteroids and observe these remnants from the early days of our solar system.
Weather conditions are greater than 90% favorable on the morning of October 16, when the Lucy mission is set to leave Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:34 a.m. ET. If it doesn't launch at that time, the window for liftoff remains open for 75 minutes.
Lucy will embark on a 12-year mission to explore Jupiter's Trojan asteroid swarms, which have never been observed. The Trojan asteroids, which borrow their name from Greek mythology, orbit the sun in two swarms -- one that's ahead of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, and a second one that lags behind it.