The Lucy Mission

Lucy is a NASA Discovery-class mission to send a highly capable and robust spacecraft to investigate primitive bodies near both the L4 and L5 Lagrange points with Jupiter; the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. This heretofore unexplored population of planetesimals from the outer planetary system holds vital clues to deciphering the history of the Solar System. Due to an unusual and fortuitous orbital configuration, Lucy will perform a comprehensive investigation that visits eight Trojans.

Reprinted from Space Science Reviews, Topical Collection: "The Lucy Mission"

Harold F. Levison is the Principal Investigator of NASA's Lucy mission.  His research interests lie in the area of the dynamics of astronomical objects. In particular, he focuses on the formation and long-term behavior of the solar system bodies. Dr. Levison's work includes studies of the formation of both giant and terrestrial planets, the long-term dynamical behavior of comets, the dynamics of objects in the Kuiper belt, the origin and stability of Trojan asteroids, and the formation of satellites. 

Simone Marchi is an astrophysicist and Institute Scientist in the Solar System Science and Exploration Division of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Marchi is author (or co-author) of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. Marchi has published a popular science book, Colliding Worlds, for the Oxford University Press (2021). Marchi is involved in several space missions, including: Deputy Principal Investigator for NASA Lucy mission.

Keith S. Noll is the Project Scientist for Lucy, the first mission to explore the Trojan asteroids.  His interests include primitive asteroids, icy satellites, and the atmospheres of giant planets, brown dwarfs, and Titan. For the last three decades he has focused on studies of the Kuiper Belt, using the Hubble to discover most of the known Kuiper Belt binaries – an activity that he has now extended to the Jupiter Trojans.