Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

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HMS Sophia
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Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by HMS Sophia »

Wasn't sure whether to put this in news or here, but it seemed interesting enough to look at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12761025
Perfect mission apparently, everything went right.
The satellite carries a ceramic shield to protect itself from the sun, which is kind of cool, and it is now in a 12 hour highly elliptical orbit around the little planet.
It did six planetary fly-by's so as too manage its speed closely enough to get into mercury's orbit but not fall into the sun.
It will be in orbit for about a year, doing something like 730 orbits
that's pretty cool :D
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by dragon »

here's to hoping for some cool pictures, or in this case hot.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by PeZook »

YES

Mercury is really underexplored ; I was waiting for Messenger to finally arrive and make some awesome discoveries.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by Hawkwings »

Here's the path that it took to get there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otF2FjpCyZk
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by UnderAGreySky »

What are the factors that have to be taken into account for to compensate for proximity to the sun? An 'umbrella' of some sort, for sure, that is opaque to infrared so that the spacecraft is not fried. I don't think Mercury has much of an atmosphere. Is reflected light from the planet's surface a big issue?
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

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It has a ceramic heat shield attached. Reflected light isn't enough of an issue to require shielding from that side, though.

From what I know, another issue is maintaining a stable orbit.
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JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up

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Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.

MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by General Trelane (Retired) »

Reflected light may not be an issue, but infrared radiation is, which is why Messenger's orbit is highly elliptical:
MESSENGER wrote:The orbit is highly elliptical (egg-shaped), with the spacecraft passing 200 kilometers (124 miles) above the surface at the lowest point and more than 15,193 kilometers (9,420 miles) at the highest. At the outset of the orbital phase of the mission, the plane of the spacecraft’s orbit is inclined 82.5° to Mercury’s equator, and the lowest point in the orbit is reached at a latitude of 60° North.

The spacecraft’s orbit is elliptical rather than circular because the planet’s surface radiates back heat from the Sun. At an altitude of 200 km, the re-radiated heat from the planet alone is 4 times the solar intensity at Earth. By spending only a short portion of each orbit flying this close to the planet, the temperature of the spacecraft can be better regulated.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by HMS Sophia »

Is reflected light from the planet's surface a big issue?
Messengers survey equipment is apparently 'specially shielded'... there were no details in the article, so what it means is anyone's guess, but still...
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by Coyote »

I am seriously looking forward to some pics from Mercury. I wonder if we find any useful minerals there, and if it would be viable to send them back to Earth with a solar sail? Obviously, this would be a ways in the future, say maybe 20 years...

And don't forget, the Pluto probe will be making its rendezvous in about 3-4 years. Within a decade we'll have gone from one end of the Solar System to the other*. Kinda cool milestone.

People keep dissing NASA for short-shrifting manned spaceflight, but I have to admit, their robots rule the Solar System. :D





*Well, not all the way to the outer end, since there's stuff beyond Pluto, but Pluto is the "traditional" outer limit.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by PeZook »

Coyote, check out the "missions" page on the NASA website: they are running a STAGGERING amount of probes, satellites and telescopes and we're getting lots of cool new data by the minute.

We now possess detailed 0.5m/pixel maps of nearly the entire lunar surface. All from a SINGLE PROBE. Talk about bang for the buck!
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JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
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Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.

MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by someone_else »

So, finally after Google Earth, Google Moon and Google Mars, we can have Google Mercury too. :mrgreen:
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by dragon »

some photos of the surface, very imact scarred.

link

Some really good pics
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by CyrilsScribe »

That was one hell of an interesting orbital path it took to get to Mercury. You can see them trying to brake the spacecraft to lose the excess delta-v that it has so it can get to the close in orbit.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by MKSheppard »

PeZook wrote:We now possess detailed 0.5m/pixel maps of nearly the entire lunar surface. All from a SINGLE PROBE. Talk about bang for the buck!
Pfah. I want maps of the lunar surface so clear that we can see the GROOVES in footprints from Shepollo 11-17.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by PeZook »

Yeah for that you're gonna have to haul a 50 tonne space telescope to lunar orbit ;)
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JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11

Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.

MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by Sarevok »

Unbelievable. It is hard to imagine reflected light alone being so hot as requiring a ceramic heat shield. The universe is a fascinating place.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

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Sarevok wrote:Unbelievable. It is hard to imagine reflected light alone being so hot as requiring a ceramic heat shield. The universe is a fascinating place.
No, the shield is directed towards the sun ; Reflected IR is handled by extending the orbit to an egg-shape, with the apoapsis very high, thus allowing the spacecraft some time to dissipate the heat from lower passes.
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JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11

Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.

MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by Sarevok »

Still it is amazing how hot the dayside of Mercury gets.

At same time areas in shadow are close to absolute zero.

I wonder if the extreme temperature gradients makes solar thermal a better proportion than solar electric on Mercury.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by MKSheppard »

PeZook wrote:Yeah for that you're gonna have to haul a 50 tonne space telescope to lunar orbit ;)
Naw. LROS is orbiting at 47 km to get those photographs of the Apollo sites at 0.5m/pixel resolution. Bring it down to 15 km altitude; the highest feature on the Moon is 7 km.
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by Rabid »

MKSheppard wrote:
PeZook wrote:Yeah for that you're gonna have to haul a 50 tonne space telescope to lunar orbit ;)
Naw. LROS is orbiting at 47 km to get those photographs of the Apollo sites at 0.5m/pixel resolution. Bring it down to 15 km altitude; the highest feature on the Moon is 7 km.
Isn't the Moon an oblate spheroid, like the Earth, with the equator "higher" than the poles ? Or at least slightly deformed by the Earth's tidal force ?
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Re: Messenger makes orbit around Mercury

Post by Hawkwings »

If so, I would imagine far less deformation. After all, the moon is rotating only once about its axis every time it goes around the Earth.
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