Attention asteroid aficionados: NASA is set to launch a series of spacecraft to visit and even bash some of the solar system’s most enticing space rocks. A robotic trailblazer named Lucy is up first, blasting off this weekend on a 12-year cruise to swarms of asteroids near Jupiter—unexplored time capsules from the dawn of the solar system, per the AP. The $981 million mission, the first to Jupiter’s so-called Trojan entourage, is targeting an unprecedented eight asteroids. Liftoff is scheduled for Saturday. Others on deck:
- Barely a month after Lucy's launch, an impactor spacecraft named Dart will give chase to a double-asteroid closer to home. The mission will end with Dart ramming the main asteroid’s moonlet to change its orbit, a test that could one day save Earth from an incoming rock.