Goodbye Messenger

One of the first posts here was about NASA's Messenger probe to Mercury, and today its mission ended. Here's Messenger's final image and tip of the hat, or a beer or two to NASA's engineers!

Now it is just waiting for ESA's BepiColombo probe to arrive - it departs in January 2017, makes 2 fly-bys of Venus, 5 of Mercury before entering orbit in January 2024.

Messenger at Mercury .. the "end game"

A long time ago, and probably one of the reasons I started writing this blog, Messenger arrived, or more correctly made a fly-by of Mercury. Now after many years NASA plan some audacious manoeuvres before they finally crash Messenger into Mercury.

Sad to see Messenger's mission end, but the results have been amazing. You can read about the planned hovering and low passes at Science Daily.

Messenger 10 year Anniversary

One of the first posts I made on this blog was about the Messenger probe to Mercury - at the time it had just made the 3rd fly-by before orbit insertion about 18 months later. On 1st August it celebrated 10 years since its launch.

So a large beer to all involved!

So now we have Messenger at Mercury, Venus Express performing dangerous aerobraking manoeuvres in Venus' atmosphere, a fleet robots trundling over Mars - not forgetting a small fleet of satellites around the planet, Juno on its way to Jupiter and venerable Cassini still going strong around Saturn.

Then there are the three that I'm most anticipating:

• Dawn's arrival at Ceres in February 2015
• New Horizons arrival, or rather fly-by, of Pluto in July 2015

and then in just a few days, Rosetta finally arrives at 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenk after 10 years. At this moment she's 3 days away with about 500 km to go! She's caring a lander called Philae which'll deeply later this year. ESA have a good track record of this kind of landings in exotic places with Huygens.

Can't wait!

In the meantime:

False colour image of Mercury showing mineral distribution.

Mercury - NASA Press Release

NASA'S MESSENGER REVEALS GLOBAL VIEWS FROM MERCURY ORBIT

Date: June 16, 2011, at 1 p.m. EDT

Introduction

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury on March 18, becoming the first spacecraft ever to do so. MESSENGER’s instruments are performing the first complete reconnaissance of the planet’s geochemistry, geophysics, geologic history, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and plasma environment. After nearly three months in orbit, the payload is providing a wealth of new information about Mercury, as well as a few surprises.

Panelists

- Brett W. Denevi, Staff Scientist, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
- Larry R. Nittler, Staff Scientist, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.
- Sean C. Solomon, MESSENGER Principal Investigator, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.
- Ralph L. McNutt, Jr., MESSENGER Project Scientist, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

Messenger: First orbital picture

Finally:

Messenger in orbit around Mercury

Finally! Seems a long time since launch and one of the first postings here about Messenger, but finally she's in orbit as of last night... From the Messenger site a NASA:

MESSENGER Begins Historic Orbit Around Mercury


NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft successfully achieved orbit around Mercury at approximately 9 p.m. EDT Thursday. This marks the first time a spacecraft has accomplished this engineering and scientific milestone at our solar system's innermost planet.

For the next several weeks, APL engineers will be focused on ensuring the spacecraft’s systems are all working well in Mercury’s harsh thermal environment. Starting on March 23, the instruments will be turned on and checked out, and on April 4 the mission's primary science phase will begin.

Messenger at Mercury

3rd fly-by before orbit insertion in 2011 occured yesterday 29th Sept 09:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/telecon6.html

Currently there seems only to be a single image from the fly-in on the 29th available at this time:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=330