Mercury Orbit Insertion, Events and Discussion leading up to MOI |
Mercury Orbit Insertion, Events and Discussion leading up to MOI |
Nov 25 2009, 05:30 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1018 Joined: 29-November 05 From: Seattle, WA, USA Member No.: 590 |
Excerpts from a new press release from the Messenger Team:
QUOTE 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 |
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Mar 13 2011, 04:52 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
If I understand things correctly (and I probably don't), it might actually be easier in terms of delta-V to crash into Mercury from the outer Solar System. Saturn's heliocentric orbital velocity is much lower than that of the Earth, so presumably that means less thrust would be required to negate it & 'fall' into the inner system.
However, we're still probably talking about a change in velocity of several (if not tens) of km/sec, plus escaping from Saturn orbit. I doubt that Cassini could have done this even if it was fully fueled at the beginning of the maneuver. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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