Pingie: HTTP:: MESSENGER Prepares for Third and Final Mercury Flyby

HTTP:: MESSENGER Prepares for Third and Final Mercury Flyby
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In less than a week's time, NASA's Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft will perform its third and final flyby of the planet, as well as its last gravity assist maneuver. This will set it on a course that will enable it to be captured in the planet's orbit in 2011. During the last flyby of the mission, the probe will pass less than 142 miles above the planet, and will image its surface again with all of its instruments, the American space agency reports. MESSENGER alone has already imaged some 90 percent of Mercury's surface during its previous two flybys, and the next one will complete the most detailed map of the closest planet to the Sun. Specific features on the surface that have not been fully analyzed during the other passes will get a new look, as mission controllers will activate dedicated instruments aboard the space probe. “This flyby will be our last close look at the equatorial regions of Mercury, and it is o!
ur final planetary gravity assist, so it is important for the entire encounter to be executed as planned. As enticing as these flybys have been for discovering some of Mercury's secrets, they are the hors d'oeuvres to the mission's main course â€" observing Mercury from orbit for an entire year,” the mission's princ...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/MESSENGER-Prepares-for-Third-and-Final-mercury-Flyby-122524.shtml
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