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Thursday, October 27, 2005

We're In A Movie
It's here, on the Messenger mission web page.
It's not one of the JPL biggies, but it might well prove to be one of the top space missions of the next decade. I always thought Mercury seemed to be too close to us not to get another look from a spacecraft. The last was Mariner 10 in 1974. It had never occurred to me there were particular problems in achieving Mercury orbit, but it costs a lot of fuel because the probe travels at a high speed relative to the planet. The Messenger people have designed a careful approach that will save fuel and gain orbit in 2011.
I hadn't been keeping tabs on this mission, but I will be from now on. Smile for the camera, Merc ... (This collage of images is from the 70's.)

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