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(music throughout)

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The Lucy mission is a planetary mission

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to the Trojan asteroids
that are around Jupiter.

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It's going to survey actually
a total of eight targets, seven asteroids

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around Jupiter and one asteroid
in the main asteroid belt.

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Once you know where you're going and
the type of science that you want to take.

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One of the things that you start looking
at is the spacecraft.

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What size spacecraft, where is it going,
how much power does it need to carry?

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Does it need solar rays,
what type of solar arrays?

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What type of vehicle is going
to be used to launch it into space.

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So that dictates
how much mass you can carry.

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And one of the things I do as a project
manager is to assemble a team

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of scientists and engineers
and technicians and business

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people to design that overall spacecraft
to achieve your mission.

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In designing the
spacecraft, you are always thinking

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about what type of environment
is it going to be subjected to.

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Is it going to orbit around Earth?

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Is it going into deep space?

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Is it going to Mars?

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Is it going close to the Sun?

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And so as engineers, one of the things
that you're thinking about

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very early on is how can you design this
system and test the system

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in order to verify and convince yourself
that it's going to survive in space.

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And as part of that, it goes through
a very rigorous test program.

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And so we call it shaking and baking.

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And so we actually put it
through what we call

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a thermal vac chamber in which we simulate
the space environment.

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You also put it on

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what we call a vibe table
in which we vibrate it, so we shake it.

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And one of the important things

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that you have to do in order
to be convinced that it's going to survive

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is to make sure that the environment
in which you're testing it in

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the simulated environment is harsher
than what it's going to see in space.

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So once you subject the spacecraft
or that instrument to that environment,

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then you can have confidence

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that it's going to last the lifetime
that it's been designed for.