L’Ralph: A Visible/Infrared Spectral Imager for the Lucy Mission to the Trojans

The Lucy Mission to the Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s orbit carries an instrument named L’Ralph, a visible/near infrared multi-spectral imager and a short wavelength infrared hyperspectral imager. It is one of the core instruments on Lucy, NASA’s first mission to the Trojans. L’Ralph’s primary purpose is to map the surface geology and composition of these objects, but it will also be used to search for possible tenuous exospheres. It is compact, low mass (32.3 kg), power efficient (24.5 W), and robust with high sensitivity and excellent imaging. These characteristics, and its high degree of redundancy, make L’Ralph ideally suited to this long-duration multi-flyby reconnaissance mission.