Lucy’s Solar Panel Hasn’t Latched--A Problem for a Mission Powered by the Sun
Freeman writes:
Lucy's solar panel hasn't latched:
NASA's Lucy spacecraft launched safely into space early on Saturday morning from Florida, but after the deployment of its two large solar arrays, one of them failed to latch properly.
Combined, the two solar arrays have a collecting area of 51 square meters. Such large arrays are necessary because the spacecraft will spend much of its 12-year journey about five times the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Lucy's solar panels can only generate about 3 percent of the energy at a Jovian distance than they can at Earth's orbit around the Sun.
[...] "In the current spacecraft attitude, Lucy can continue to operate with no threat to its health and safety," the agency said in a blog post. But it is not yet clear how the latching issue will affect long-term operations and maneuvering of the 1.5-ton spacecraft.
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