Atlas 5

Bound for a pristine population of ancient asteroids, a NASA science probe named Lucy took off from Cape Canaveral before dawn Saturday and rocketed into space on top of an Atlas 5 launcher to begin a 12-year, $981 million mission seeking out clues about the early solar system.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, buttoned up in the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5, took off from Cape Canaveral at 5:34 a.m. EDT (0934 GMT) Saturday. The Lucy mission will take aim on eight asteroids during a 12-year mission, a record number of flyby targets for a single spacecraft.

NASA is ready to launch a $981 million mission to the distant reaches of the solar system Saturday, kicking off a 12-year expedition to visit a group of unexplored asteroids that may offer clues to help scientists decipher how the planets formed more than 4 billion years ago.

The final Atlas rocket assigned to launch a solar system exploration mission is set for liftoff before dawn Saturday. NASA’s Lucy asteroid mission is mounted on top of the rocket awaiting launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The 188-foot-tall Atlas 5 rocket crowned with NASA’s Lucy asteroid probe rolled out to its launch pad Thursday at Cape Canaveral. These aerial views, captured by a drone and released by NASA, show the launch vehicle moving along rail tracks to Space Launch Complex 41.

An Atlas 5 rocket emerged from its hangar and rolled to a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Thursday with NASA’s Lucy asteroid probe. The launch of the Lucy spacecraft Saturday will mark the final planetary science mission in the storied history of the Atlas program.

United Launch Alliance rolled out its next Atlas 5 rocket Thursday to a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, moving the launcher into position for blastoff Saturday at 5:34 a.m. EDT (0934 GMT) with NASA’s Lucy mission, a robotic spacecraft to explore the Trojan asteroids in the outer solar system.

Ground teams are stepping through testing of three small CubeSats launched with the Landsat 9 remote sensing satellite last month, preparing the small spacecraft for exoplanet observations and communications experiments. NASA says engineers have not established contact with another CubeSat designed for space weather research.

Teams at Cape Canaveral transferred NASA’s Lucy asteroid explorer to a United Launch Alliance integration building Thursday and mounted the robotic science probe atop an Atlas 5 rocket for liftoff later this month, using a booster originally built to send astronauts into space.