MESSENGER does it: Orbits Mercury

William Atkins
Saturday, 19 March 2011 00:30

Science - Space

The NASA MESSENGER spacecraft has successfully done what no other spacecraft has ever done before, insert itself into orbit around the planet Mercury.

The orbital insertion by NASA's MESSENGER was accomplished at approximately 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on Thursday, March 17, 2011.

The earlier iTWire article 'NASA readies its MESSENGER around Mercury" discusses the mission and its approach to the innermost planet of our Solar System.

It states, 'It has spent the last six years, seven months covering about 4.7 billion miles (7.6 billion kilometers) in its loop-d-loop journey to the hot and rocky planet we call Mercury.'

At about 8:45 p.m. EDT, on Thursday, March 17, 2011, the MESSENGER spacecraft performed a 15-minute burn to insert itself into orbit about the planet Mercury.

Mission controllers received confirmation at about 9:10 p.m. EDT -- about 25 minutes later -- that the spacecraft was indeed in orbit about Mercury.

Eric Finnegan, the lead systems engineer for the MESSENGER mission, stated, "The Messenger spacecraft is in orbit around Mercury we are there."

Finnegan indicated at that time that the spacecraft was in an orbit that was just about what they had hoped for, a highly elliptical orbit that is within 125 miles (200 kilometers) of the planet's surface.

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