Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

How to watch NASA’s asteroid explorer Lucy launch this week

Georgina Torbet
By

This week, NASA will be launching its newest explorer: Lucy, a spacecraft that will be traveling to the asteroids near Jupiter to learn about how the solar system formed. Lucy will launch early in the morning on Saturday, October 16 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and we’ve got the details on how you can watch the launch live.

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

What Lucy will be exploring

Artist’s illustration of the Lucy concept.
Artist’s illustration of the Lucy concept. Southwest Research Institute

Lucy will be heading out into the solar system to visit the Trojans, a group of asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter. These are believed to be leftovers from the formation of the outer planets, from a period more than 4 billion years ago.

“Over its 12-year primary mission, Lucy will explore a record-breaking number of asteroids,” NASA writes. “The spacecraft will fly by one asteroid in the solar system’s main belt and seven Trojan asteroids. Lucy’s path will circle back to Earth three times for gravity assists, which will make it the first spacecraft ever to return to our planet’s vicinity from the outer solar system.”

To learn more about Lucy’s goals, we spoke to the mission’s principal investigator, Hal Levison, about how it could unravel the mysteries of the solar system’s formation.

How to watch the launch

NASA will be livestreaming the launch of Lucy, as well as a variety of prelaunch activities like preparing for liftoff and commentary from experts. You can watch online either using the video embedded at the top of this page or by heading to NASA’s website.

The coverage of the launch will begin at 5 a.m. ET (2 a.m. PT) on Saturday, October 16. The launch itself is scheduled for 5:34 a.m. ET (2:34 a.m. PT).

If you want to learn more about the mission, there are two days of briefings and information that will be shown before the launch. On Thursday, October 14 there will be a live Lucy Rollout Show at 10 a.m. ET (7 a.m. PT) following by a science briefing at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) with the researchers who will be working with the Lucy data, followed by an engineering briefing at 3 p.m. ET (12 p.m. PT) with the engineers who built the spacecraft.

On Friday, October 15 you can hear from NASA scientists about the mission in a briefing scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET (12:30 p.m. PT).

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
SpaceX takes big step toward first flight of most powerful rocket
SpaceX's Starship spacecraft being placed atop the Super Heavy rocket.
There’s an asteroid surprise in this week’s Hubble image
A host of astronomical objects throng this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Background galaxies ranging from stately spirals to fuzzy ellipticals are strewn across the image, and bright foreground stars much closer to home are also present, surrounded by diffraction spikes. In the centre of the image, the vague shape of the small galaxy UGC 7983 appears as a hazy cloud of light. UGC 7983 is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo, and is a dwarf irregular galaxy — a type thought to be similar to the very earliest galaxies in the Universe.
Still no joy for Lucy’s stuck solar array, NASA is giving up for now
see lucy spacecraft slingshot past earth fly by
This must be the most beautiful image ever of a rocket launch
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from Florida.
Mars helicopter keeps on flying as it approaches second anniversary
NASA's Ingenuity helicopter.
James Webb captures stunning image of star formation in nearby galaxy
NGC 346, shown here in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a dynamic star cluster that lies within a nebula 200,000 light years away. Webb reveals the presence of many more building blocks than previously expected, not only for stars, but also planets, in the form of clouds packed with dust and hydrogen. 
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission hindered by thruster issue
This illustration shows NASA’s Lunar Flashlight carrying out a trajectory correction maneuver with the Moon and Earth in the background. Powered by the small satellite’s four thrusters, the maneuver is needed to reach lunar orbit.
These supermassive black holes are cozying up close together
Scientists using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to look deep into the heart of the pair of merging galaxies known as UGC 4211 discovered two black holes growing side by side, just 750 light-years apart. This artist’s conception shows the late-stage galaxy merger and its two central black holes. The binary black holes are the closest together ever observed in multiple wavelengths.
How to watch the classified SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch tomorrow
The Falcon Heavy is seen at Launch Complex 39A in Florida.
How James Webb peers into the atmospheres of far-off exoplanets
Illustration of a planet on a black background. The planet is large and rocky. Roughly two-thirds of the planet is lit, while the rest is in shadow.
NASA is asking for your help to study exoplanets
Members of the public can help astronomers observe and study the night sky through NASA’s Universe of Learning Exoplanet Watch program.
SpaceX reaches agreement with astronomers to limit Starlink interference
Image showing the disruption of astronomical observations caused by a previous Starlink launch
Hubble snaps an image of a galaxy in our cosmic backyard
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy LEDA 48062 in the constellation Perseus. LEDA 48062 is the faint, sparse, amorphous galaxy on the right side of the image, and it is accompanied by a more sharply defined neighbor on the left – the large, disk-like lenticular galaxy UGC 8603. A smattering of more distant galaxies litter the background while a handful of foreground stars shine brightly throughout the image.