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 15 2009, 04:01 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 214 Joined: 30-December 05 Member No.: 628 |
In the related link, showing the simulated position of Messenger relative to Mercury and the sun
http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/whereis/index.php#current_orbit Messenger seems to be cruising almost "parallel" with the planet while approaching from the night side. It's hard to tell the relative sizes of things from the sim diagrams, but in the fourth picture it looks like even now the planet is directly between the spacecraft and the sun. I'd be curious to know - about how much total time will the spacecraft be spending in Mercury's eclipse during this approach? |
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Sep 16 2009, 12:14 AM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 340 Joined: 11-April 08 From: Sydney, Australia Member No.: 4093 |
Messenger seems to be cruising almost "parallel" with the planet while approaching from the night side. Yes MESSENGER is cruising more or less directly behind Mercury at the moment (as seen from the Sun). See also the sim images on my site http://www.dmuller.net/messenger (apologies for the "advertisement"), in particular how close the Sun and Mercury are as seen from MESSENGER and the all-dark Mercury enlargement. That can also be seen on the solar system maps on my site: http://www.dmuller.net/realtime/map.php?mt=aboveinner and http://www.dmuller.net/realtime/map.php?mt=eclipticinner. You can also see that the relative speed between MESSENGER and Mercury is now down to less than 22,000km/h. Still too much for an orbit insertion burn, hence this is a flyby and not (yet) the orbit capture. Mercury will move to the right of the Sun as seen from MESSENGER. View from above and over time (sorry didnt have the time to make an animated gif): 16Sep: http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showsc=1 19Sep: http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showsc=1 22Sep: http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showsc=1 25Sep: http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showsc=1 28Sep: http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showsc=1 Flyby: http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showsc=1 -------------------- |
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