Spacecraft Buzzes By Mercury

Riding with Robots writes "The robotic spacecraft MESSENGER is making its second fly-by of the first planet today, skimming just 200 kilometers above the surface. The fly-by will reveal portions of the planet that have never been seen before, but the main purpose of the maneuver is to prepare for an orbital insertion in 2011. The mission site offers extensive information, along with the first pictures that are already arriving on Earth, with many more expected in the coming hours and days."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Question on why so long a time to establish orbit?

[blahbooboo]

Could someone please explain why according to the web site the orbit insertion is going to take another pass and another 3 years. Does it really take that long to slow the spacecraft down?

MESSENGER used solar sailing

[rotenberry]

Note that MESSENGER used solar sailing to correct its trajectory for this flyby:

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001674/ [planetary.org]

we should be doing more of this

[jagdish]

This is what we should be doing, instead of quibbling over small things like creationism and Paris Hilton. We should launch several satellites orbiting each planet and few satellites for some of the more interesting moons(Europa, io etc)

Re:The coldest place

[DerekLyons]

Mercury doesn't get as much interest as Venus because it is very, very hard to get to and has an extremely hostile orbital environment once you get there. Venus gets less attention than Mars because it very hard to get there, has a hostile orbital environment and very difficult to learn anything once you do because of the cloud cover.
 
Mars, by comparison, is merely hard to get to, has a relatively benign orbital environment, and has a transparent atmosphere.