NASA's Lucy spacecraft has a problem with one of its solar arrays, which has not locked into place properly. Now there's a plan to fix it.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has been traveling through space on its way to visit the Trojan asteroids since its launch in October last year, but the team has had to deal with an unexpected issue with its deployment.
But one solar array failed to latch correctly after deployment on October 17, 2021. The array was almost completely deployed and was still capable of providing solar energy to the spacecraft, but it was not secured in place as it should have been. The mission team opted to continue with the craft entering cruise mode as planned because the combined two arrays were generating enough power for the mission to go ahead.
In a recent update, NASA shared that on Monday, April 18, the team decided to go ahead with trying to fix the array into its proper place. To do that, they will work with the motor which controls the array deployment. “After launch, the arrays were opened by a small motor that reels in a lanyard attached to both ends of the folded solar array,” NASA writes. “The team estimates that 20 to 40 inches of this lanyard remains to be retracted for the open array to latch.
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