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 15 2011, 04:43 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 600 Joined: 26-August 05 Member No.: 476 |
The orientation of the day side is to the right vs. to the left in Where is Messenger? page on the Messenger website. I had wondered about the latter since Messenger is ahead of Mercury in its orbit waiting for the planet to "catch up" to it. EOTSS appears to have the view in accord with the convention of North pointing up.
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