ULA Atlas V – NASA’s Lucy Launch

Early on Saturday morning on October 16th, United Launch Alliance launched NASA’s Lucy spacecraft towards Jupiter in a first-of-its-kind mission. Below you can view the long exposure images I captured of the rocket launch from Rockledge, Florida. 

Click here to view it in fullscreen.

Little Planet or Tiny Planet projection of the above spherical 360-degree panoramic image of a ULA Atlas V rocket carrying NASA’s Lucy spacecraft into space. Credit – Jason Perrone

Equipment used to capture the above 360-degree panoramic images:

• Canon EOS 6D mkii
• Sigma 8mm Fisheye

Long exposure photo of a ULA Atlas V rocket carrying NASA’s Lucy spacecraft into space. Credit – Jason Perrone

Equipment used to capture the long exposure image above:

• Canon EOS 6D 
• Sigma 12-24mm
• Wireless trigger

About the Lucy Mission

From the ULA website – NASA’s Lucy mission is the first space mission to explore a diverse population of small bodies known as the Jupiter Trojan asteroids. These small bodies are remnants of our early solar system, now trapped on stable orbits associated with – but not close to – the giant planet Jupiter.

The Trojan asteroids are in two “swarms” that lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun, and are almost as numerous as the objects in the Main Asteroid Belt. Over its 12-year primary mission, Lucy will explore a record-breaking number of asteroids, flying by one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids.

The Lucy mission is named after the fossilized skeleton of an early hominin (pre-human ancestor) that was found in Ethiopia in 1974 and named “Lucy” by the team of paleontologists who discovered it. And just as the Lucy fossil provided unique insights into humanity’s evolution, the Lucy mission promises to revolutionize our knowledge of planetary origins and the formation of the Solar System.

The Lucy mission is a joint mission of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center, the Southwest Research Institute, and NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) based at Kennedy Space Center. Read more on the ULA website. 

View other ULA  rocket launches and events I have photographed.