Mercury Flyby 3 Options

[Greg Hullender]

We're now just one Mercury year (88 days) from flyby #3, which happens on September 29, 2009, so this seems like a good time to start a thread about it.

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/index.php

For comparison purposes, it'd be nice if someone (probably someone on the Messenger team) put together a Mercury Map showing what areas will get better coverage from this flyby than from the previous ones. I realize it'll be very similar to flyby #1, but it won't be exactly the same.

After that, it's a long wait until MOI on March 18, 2011. Curiously, that's the same date the New Horizons crosses the orbit of Uranus.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingpla...ets_current.php


--Greg

[stevesliva]

Just got an email with a 5-year milestone press release:
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/details.php?id=127

The probe has completed four major deep-space maneuvers (DSMs) and 12 trajectory-correction maneuvers, and mission controllers have been able to forgo six additional planned course corrections by using MESSENGER’s solar panels creatively, harnessing solar radiation pressure to adjust the spacecraft’s trajectory.

“Because of the implementation of solar sailing, the MESSENGER team has not used propellant to correct the cruise trajectory of the spacecraft since December 19, 2007, in advance of the first Mercury flyby,” says MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan, of APL.

Neat!