August 3, 2004, ten years ago, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft started from Cape Canaveral, FL, for a ambitious mission that would take the small satellite dangerously close to Mercury’s surface. We congratulate the MESSENGER team on their successful 10 year. Here is a nice infographic and video shared by the Team itself.
Just few hour ago we reported MESSENGER getting closer to Mercury. The mission itself is a major success. The spacecraft traveled 4.9 billion miles (7.9 billion kilometers) – a journey that included 15 trips around the Sun and flybys of Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury three times – before it was inserted into orbit around its target planet in 2011. In the infographic shared above you could see the MESSENGER’s 10 year in numbers.
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of its launch, the MESSENGER team has released a movie acquired during an early stage of MESSENGER’s low-altitude campaign. Check video below –
More details of the Video –
Date acquired: June 8, 2014
Image Mission Elapsed Time (MET): 44519827-44520005
Image ID: 6458912-6459090
Instrument: Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS)
Initial Center Latitude: 77.2°
Initial Center Longitude: 78.1° E
Final Center Latitude: 79.2°
Final Center Longitude: 193.6° E
Resolution: 21 meters/pixel-45 meters/pixel
Scale: The first image is approximately 10.5 km (6.5 miles) across
Incidence Angle: 80.0°-87.6°
Emission Angle: 78.4°-83.5°
Phase Angle: 66.3°-66.4°
Check more details at the MESSENGER’s mission page, here.
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