Sub-spacecraft surface latitude, longitude: 4.521° S, 37.730° E Spacecraft distance to planet center: 2641.1 km See three views of the spacecraft trajectory near closest approach to the planet, as well as summary details of the spacecraft's location when closest to the planet and the gravity-assist boost imparted to the spacecraft via the flyby.įirst Mercury flyby closest approach details:ĭate and time: January 14, 2008, 19:04:39 UTC Check back often to see the latest releases! View images, data and movies acquired by the MESSENGER spacecraft during its flyby of Mercury. Listen to Principal Investigator Sean Solomon discuss the importance of this historic flyby of Mercury during a Planetary Radio show. Extensive scient ific observations were executed during this flyby encounter, including imaging a large portion of Mercury's surface that had never before been seen by a spacecraft. On January 14, 2008, more than three decades after the third Mariner 10 flyby, the last spacecraft visit of Mercury, MESSENGER passed 200 kilometers above Mercury's surface. The three low-altitude Mercury flybys, each followed by a course-correction maneuver, put MESSENGER in position to enter Mercury orbit by firing its main engine and allowing the planet's gravity to "capture" it. The Venus flybys - followed again by a Deep Space Maneuver - resize and rotate MESSENGER's trajectory closer to Mercury's orbit. An engine burn (known as a Deep Space Maneuver) four months later will alter the orbit slightly and accurately target the spacecraft toward Venus for the next flybys. In its first flyby, MESSENGER will use Earth's gravity to change its trajectory and move in closer to the Sun. If the spacecraft attempted to fly straight from Earth to Mercury and move into orbit around the planet, it would have required an impractically large amount of onboard fuel (to slow it down) and a much larger launch vehicle. MESSENGER will rely on multiple planetary flybys - Earth once, Venus twice and Mercury three times - to "catch" Mercury and begin orbiting the planet. Mercury Orbiter: Report of the Science Working Team (1991).The results obtained are valid to within 1–2 decimal places. However, it is possible that an object of small size (or several such objects) may be located inside Mercury’s orbit, and one more object, whose mass should not exceed at least ~0.2 of the Earth mass may be located at the diametrically opposite point of the Earth orbit behind the Sun. That is, the question on the adequacy of the generalized law of universal gravitation to the observances still remains open. As is well known, the observed shift is ~574.1”. This is less than the observed shift of the perihelion of Mercury’s orbit by ~19.9”. It has been shown that the average precession of the perihelion of Mercury’s orbit in 100 years calculated within the framework of the generalized law of universal gravitation and averaged over long time periods from several hundred years to several thousand years taking into account the ellipticity of planet orbits is ~554.2”. Calculations were carried out with increased accuracy (up to 19–20 decimal places) and iteration steps of 0.00005 s and 0.0001 s starting from the asteroid belt. The precession of the perihelion of Mercury’s orbit is simulated numerically within the framework of the generalized law of universal gravitation in the field of the Sun and planets taking into account the ellipticity of the planet orbits and new data on the flattening, the mass of the Sun, and the gravitational constant.
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