MESSENGER ARRIVES, Mercury Orbit Insertion Options

[Astro0]

Less than 20 hours now until the MESSENGER spacecraft fires its engine to enter orbit at Mercury.

Live Webcast March 17th – broadcast starts at 0030 UTC.

Follow the progress: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/mer_orbit.html.
There will be commentary on the mission, real-time coverage of the maneuver, animation of what the spacecraft is doing, a view of the carrier’s Doppler as they receive it, and live video from MESSENGER Mission Operations.

Remember that the Canberra DSN is providing two-way communication with MESSENGER
We'll be using both DSS43 (70-metre) and DSS34 (34-metre) antennas.

Good luck to the team at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

[Stu]

Thanks Even wider angle shot...

http://twitpic.com/4d88na

(Mercury's a bit hard to see - you need to enlarge the image by putting your cursor at the pic's top right to bring up an "enlarge" optionm then you'll see Mercury between the tower and tree. You might need to squint, but it's there.

Honest.