Mercury Orbit Insertion, Events and Discussion leading up to MOI Options

[Greg Hullender]

Excerpts from a new press release from the Messenger Team:

Deep-Space Maneuver Positions MESSENGER for Mercury Orbit Insertion

The Mercury-bound MESSENGER spacecraft completed its fifth and final deep-space maneuver of the mission today, providing the expected velocity change needed to place the spacecraft on course to enter into orbit about Mercury in March 2011. . . . today's maneuver began at 4:45 p.m. EST.
Mission controllers at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., verified the start of the maneuver about 12 minutes, 49 seconds later, when the first signals indicating spacecraft thruster activity reached NASA's Deep Space Network tracking station outside Goldstone, Calif.

"The team was well-prepared for the maneuver," said MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan, of APL. "Initial data analysis indicates an extremely accurate maneuver execution. After sifting through all the post-burn data I expect we will find ourselves right on target."

--Greg

[tasp]

It's just amazing they racked up over 4 billion(!) miles on the odometer so quickly. New Horizons seems screaming fast, but Messenger could blow it's doors off!

(Yeah, I know we are just seeing the effects of the sun's gravitational well, but still)


Even more amazing when you consider all the flybys of Venus and Mercury were to slow the craft. I recall the Mercury and Gemini astronauts were trained in orbital mechanics by having them drive in circles of differing sizes at differing speeds to impress upon them how it all works.