NASA Probes Mercury

Lighthawk · Post by **Lighthawk** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:22 pm

CNN) -- NASA's Mercury probe Messenger has become the first spacecraft to go into orbit around the closest plant to the Sun.

Confirmation of the probe entering Mercury's orbit was received Thursday evening.

"Achieving Mercury orbit was by far the biggest milestone since Messenger was launched more than six and a half years ago," said Messenger Project Manager Peter Bedini, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

"This accomplishment is the fruit of a tremendous amount of labor on the part of the navigation, guidance-and-control, and mission operations teams, who shepherded the spacecraft through its 4.9-billion-mile (7.9-billion-kilometer) journey."

The space agency is hoping to get the first pictures back from the Messenger probe in orbit by the end of the month. The primary science phase of the mission is scheduled to begin April 4.

"Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored," said Sean Solomon, Messenger principal investigator.

"For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system's innermost planet," he said. "Mercury's secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed."

Source

Post by **Mikey** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:35 pm

Incoming transmission: "This place is f***ing HOT."

Post by **Tsukiyumi** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 1:54 pm

I'm really happy about this. Mercury is my favorite planet.

Other than Earth, naturally.

colmquinn · Post by **colmquinn** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 3:10 pm

I also read thispart of the story on another site & thought it was funny,

A Nasa Twitter account under Messenger's name gave play-by-play accounts as it arrived at the small planet. Messenger "exchanged tweets" with Voyager 2, one of Nasa's oldest and most distant spacecraft.

Voyager 2, launched in 1977 and now at the edge of the solar system, tweeted good luck and Messenger "answered" with a tweet: "Many thanks! Cold out there? Kinda warm where I am."

Read more: http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/nasa-s ... z1GxpxDcGz

Kinda reminded me of the minds from the Culture

Post by **Mikey** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 3:18 pm

Great.

"Why have we lost all telemetry from Messenger?!"

"Well, it appears that it's busy updating its relationship status, sir."

Sonic Glitch · Post by **Sonic Glitch** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:05 pm

Mikey wrote:Great.

"Why have we lost all telemetry from Messenger?!"

"Well, it appears that it's busy updating its relationship status, sir."

RK_Striker_JK_5 · Post by **RK_Striker_JK_5** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:29 pm

Talk about a May/December romance!

Captain Picard's Hair · Fri Mar 18, 2011 10:05 pm

RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:Talk about a May/December romance!

Quite a long distance romance. I'm not sure what the exact number is but by now the speed of light delay between the two satellites must be a few days or so.

It must also take a lot of patience to work on one of these satellite missions: you watch the thing launch and have to twiddle around for months or years years before you can do anything with it!

Post by **Mikey** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 12:00 am

Well, let's see - VOY 2 just made the edge of the solar system, and it's only been... 34 years.

RK_Striker_JK_5 · Post by **RK_Striker_JK_5** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:27 pm

Mikey wrote:Well, let's see - VOY 2 just made the edge of the solar system, and it's only been... 34 years.

It's waiting for either the TARDIS, the Millennium Falcon or one of the Enterprises to give it a ride, methinks.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:36 pm

Or for a short, terminal encounter with a BoP.

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