Jun. 27—NASA is still working to fully open Lucy's solar array.

This spacecraft, which will spend 12 years exploring the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the sun, hit a glitch after launching in October: One of its two solar arrays did not fully open and latch into place.

NASA has since been troubleshooting, and it's in the middle of a multi-stage effort to fully open the solar array that creates energy for the spacecraft. In an earlier blog post, NASA said the spacecraft was producing enough energy for its mission. But its engineers were worried that the unlatched solar array could be damaged when the engine ignites.

The solar array was designed with a primary motor and a backup motor. NASA has been using both motors, generating more torque than on the day of launch, to try to force the array to latch in a fully open position.

Attempts in May and June have not latched the solar array into place. But the array has continued to open wider, and is nearly fully open. There will be more opportunities to keep trying to open it.

     ___

     (c)2022 the Houston Chronicle

     Visit the Houston Chronicle at www.chron.com

     Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.