Mercury Flyby 3 |
Mercury Flyby 3 |
Jul 3 2009, 09:27 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1018 Joined: 29-November 05 From: Seattle, WA, USA Member No.: 590 |
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 |
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Sep 9 2009, 04:03 AM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
Haven't been able to find much information yet. According to the site, closest approach is 29Sep2009 17:54:58 EDT, presumably that translates to 29Sep2009 22:54:58 UTC but it doesn't state if it's Earth received time (ERT) or spacecraft event time (SCET). Does anybody know the answer to this?
The latest SPICE kernel I could find was updated on 30 Mar 09 and implies closest approach on 29Sep09 22:53:00 SCET ET at 199.7km altitude and a relative speed of 19,094km/h. That time translates to 29Sep09 22:58:32 ERT UTC. (66 leap seconds and one-way light time of 6min38sec) EDIT: Assumed that time given is ERT and have updated MESSENGER realtime simulation (http://www.dmuller.net/messenger) accordingly -------------------- |
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