KinetX Prepares Lucy for Upcoming Flyby of Asteroid Dinkinesh
Optical navigation image of Dinkinesh (yellow circle), taken by Lucy’s L’LORRI imager on Sept. 5, 2023.
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/JHUAPL
The Lucy flight dynamics team at KinetX continues to perform critical navigation activities in support of the NASA Lucy mission’s upcoming flyby of asteroid Dinkinesh on November 1, 2023. The team has been processing optical navigation images of asteroid Dinkinesh over the last several weeks, which have informed spacecraft orbit determination and maneuver design en route to the flyby target. The team performed a small trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) on September 29 which retargeted the trajectory to pass approximately 425 km away from Dinkinesh during its closest approach. More information about the navigation and spacecraft events leading up to the Dinkinesh encounter can be found here and here.
