Mercury Flyby 1 Options

[Rob Pinnegar]

Actually, my first guess is that Mercury's slow rotation should actually make it easier to map the magnetosphere, and pick up stuff like quadrupole moment. The "nearly-stationary" nature of the field should make it much easier to disentangle rotational effects from translational effects.

[peter59]

MESSENGER’s nineteenth trajectory-correction maneuver (TCM-19) completed on December 19 lasted 110 seconds and adjusted the spacecraft's velocity by 1.1 meters per second (3.6 feet per second). The movement targeted the spacecraft close to the intended aim point 200 km (124 miles) above the night-side surface of Mercury for the probe's first flyby of that planet on January 14, 2008.

MESSENGER ZEROS IN ON MERCURY

[peter59]

New animation of MESSENGER's flyby of Mercury that shows the specific instrument operations planned during the encounter.

Mercury Flyby 1

[tedstryk]

Sweet!

[volcanopele]

Very nice! Looks like there will some very nice mosaic designs during this encounter.

And I think they did a very good job with this visualization by freezing the frames for a few seconds so you can clearly see the mosaics and where they will be.

[ugordan]

Wow, that's going to be a LOT of frames!

Great visualization, only thing it misses is event timecodes. Reminds me of Voyager Uranus/Neptune flyby animations a bit.

[volcanopele]

LOL, I've been working on image processing for too long. As I watch this video, I start thinking about which images would I process first (likely the full-disk WAC mosaic after the Northern hemisphere NAC mosaic), and what order I would process these mosaics in. Looks like the NAC mosaics are composed of single filter frames, which simplifies things quite a bit.

[tedstryk]

I am looking forward to seeing the rest of Caloris. This is a rough mosaic using this image set I posted earlier and the high-res map coverage (I am on my way out the door for the holidays, so I didn't have much time to work), but it shows the extent of Mariner 10's coverage (I probably could have found some images that were somewhat better just beyond the limb, but, like I said, I am on my way out the door).

[MarsIsImportant]

Wow! There will be a lot more visual camera mosaics than I thought.

Looking at the timeline and the scientific instruments involved in this Flyby, there is going to be a lot of atmospheric analysis with the UV scanner from the MASCS, especially upon approach while there is just a cresent Mercury visible. Wide angle and narrow angle mosaics will still be made upon approach. Upon closest approach at 200 km, there will be Visual/IR/UV surface spectroscopy of the dark side of Mercury. The wide angle camera will be turned back on around 2000 km in altitude to do color photometry. A High-resolution mosaic will begin with the narrow angle camera when the spacecraft gets near 3000 km in altitude. These high-resolution images will be of the equitorial region on the side of Mercury never seen close-up before. They will then do wide angle color imaging of the same and surrounding area. Then they will switch back to high-resolution and do the entire northern hemisphere that is visible. Switch back again to the wide angle camera and do the whole planet face. Then repeat with the narrow angle camera. The whole flyby sequence will be done in little more than an hour and a half.

I suppose the MAG will be taking measurements the entire time. I don't know where or when the EPPS will come into play; but it will probably be taking measurements too of any charged particles within the magnetosphere. I can hardly wait for clues to solar influence upon Mercury's magnetic field and their interaction.

It looks like this will be a science intensive flyby. There should be a lot of answers or at least clues to a lot of burning questions about Mercury. I'm even more excited now than I was a couple of weeks ago! And I can hardly wait for the eventual orbital insertion.

[edstrick]

"...all of which add up to the magnetic field being almost stationary while the craft flies through..."

Mariner 10, on one of the two night-side flyby's, got good data on the field configuration on the way in, but then was hit by a magnetosphere substorm on the way out, reducing the "fittabiility" of the data. The magnetic field is weak, the magnetosphere is small, and solar wind is strong.... the magnetosphere "does things fast"

[CAP-Team]

I'm curious who'll post the first new map of Mercury based on the new images of this first flyby

[nprev]

...we should start a pool! UMSF's imagesmiths are so talented that I know that they'll beat the USGS by several months. Heck, I'd be surprised if someone doesn't post a revised map later than 2 weeks after this encounter.

[4th rock from th...]

...This is a rough mosaic using this image set I posted earlier and the high-res map coverage...

Very nice Ted! The Mariner 10 dataset is hard to work with and you've pulled some nice data from it.
A can almost make out half of Caloris basin in your images!

[ugordan]

I'd be surprised if someone doesn't post a revised map later than 2 weeks after this encounter.

You both seem to be forgetting MESSENGER doesn't feature raw image pages like MER and Cassini does.

[nprev]

Didn't forget; actually, never knew. Bummer.