Hoping to piece together the history of the solar system, NASA is set to embark on one of its most ambitious missions: Lucy, a 12-year journey to observe the primitive asteroids trapped in Jupiter’s path around the sun.
NASA will attempt to launch the probe from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s pad 41 on Saturday between 5:34 a.m. and 6:49 a.m. aboard United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. The weather for the launch is currently 90% go.
Named for the hominid fossil discovered in 1974 Ethiopia that scientists came to call Lucy, the spacecraft will fly by seven Trojan asteroids, each one named for a hero of the Trojan War or a character in The Iliad.
