Atlas V’s rocket exhaust painted the morning sky of Cocoa Beach on Oct. 16. It was a beautiful send-off of the Lucy space probe, starting its 12-year mission to explore the ancient remains of our solar system. The name Lucy is derived from the fossilized hominid skeleton, which was discovered in 1974. This paleontological find gave scientists an unprecedented look into one of humanity’s early forms. Likewise, the Lucy mission plans to give scientists new data on the solar system’s early form by analyzing numerous asteroids within it. The mission plans to visit a grand total of eight asteroids, seven of which are classified as Trojan asteroids, which are located within one of Jupiter’s Lagrange points – these are regions of gravitational stability in space. The Lucy probe will need to perform two gravity assists around the Earth to reach all of these distant objects.

On Nov. 11, the Crew-3 mission took off from Launch Complex 39-A on a cloudy night. The Falcon 9 rocket propelled Crew Dragon Endurance, along with its four astronauts, to low Earth orbit (LEO). The spacecraft would then dock with the International Space Station less than 24 hours later. The astronauts onboard included Raja Chari (spacecraft commander), Thomas Marshburn (pilot), Matthias Maurer (mission specialist #1), and Kayla Barron (mission specialist #2). During their mission, they will perform a multitude of groundbreaking research experiments in microgravity. One of these exciting research projects involves growing near-perfect nanocrystals of riboswitch RNA. This has the potential to advance our understanding of gene switching once analyzed back on Earth. The mission is planned to last some 5½ months before the crew returns to Earth with these completed experiments.