NASA mission to Mercury nears its target. Credit: NASA
THE WOODLANDS, Texas – All is in readiness for NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft – MESSENGER – to swing in orbit about the planet Mercury on March 17th.
Scientists attending the 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) here report all is in readiness for the probe to begin a one-year science campaign to understand the innermost planet.
Now just days away from executing a 15-minute burn, a maneuver that places MESSENGER into orbit about Mercury, the spacecraft has begun executing the last cruise command sequence of the mission.
In doing so, it marks the end of six and one half years of successfully shepherding the spacecraft through six planetary flybys, five major propulsive maneuvers, and sixteen trajectory-correction maneuvers.
Attending this major science meeting, MESSENGER Principal investigator, Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, has made note of the spacecraft’s long haul to Mercury: “The cruise phase of the MESSENGER mission has reached the end game,” he said. “Orbit insertion is the last hurdle to a new game level, operation of the first spacecraft in orbit about the solar system’s innermost planet. The MESSENGER team is ready and eager for orbital operations to begin.”
MESSENGER was launched on August 3, 2004, and after flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury will start this month a yearlong study of its target planet.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built and operates the MESSENGER spacecraft and manages this Discovery-class mission for NASA.
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By LD/CSE