by NASA's Lucy asteroid probe is set to begin its 12-year space odyssey next month.
Lucy is scheduled to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Oct. 16.
The liftoff will kick off a landmark mission that will see Lucy get up close and personal with eight different space rocks over the next dozen years.
"We're visiting more asteroids than any other spacecraft in history," Lucy principal investigator Hal Levison, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, said during a news conference on Tuesday (Sept. 28).
"We're also going to exceed another [record]: We're going farther from the sun than any other solar-powered spacecraft in history," Levison added.
Lucy will take the distance crown from NASA's Juno probe, which has been orbiting Jupiter since July 2016.
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Lucy is scheduled to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Oct. 16.
The liftoff will kick off a landmark mission that will see Lucy get up close and personal with eight different space rocks over the next dozen years.
"We're visiting more asteroids than any other spacecraft in history," Lucy principal investigator Hal Levison, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, said during a news conference on Tuesday (Sept. 28).
"We're also going to exceed another [record]: We're going farther from the sun than any other solar-powered spacecraft in history," Levison added.
Lucy will take the distance crown from NASA's Juno probe, which has been orbiting Jupiter since July 2016.
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