1. About
  2. Earth
    1. ISS
    2. Aqua
    3. GOES-14
    4. JWST
  3. Moon
    1. LADEE
    2. NRHO
  4. Mercury
    1. MESSENGER
  5. Venus
    1. Venus Express
  6. Mars
    1. MRO
    2. MAVEN
  7. Interplanetary
    1. MAVEN transfer

MESSENGER

Mercury orbit

Files

Click here to download the trajectory.
Click here to download the run options file.

Description

Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) was a NASA mission to study Mercury’s surface composition, geological history, and magnetic field.  It orbited Mercury for 4 years before running out of fuel and crashing onto the planet’s surface.  MESSENGER used a highly elliptic and highly inclined orbit that did not precess.

MESSENGER’s altitude ranged from a couple hundred km above the Hermean surface to more than 15,000 km.  It spent most of its time near apoapsis; this choice was made to protect the spacecraft from the heat emitted by the planet.  It will therefore benefit very little from planetary shielding; additionally, meteoroid fluxes and speeds are significantly higher closer to the Sun.

Graphics

Trajectory in inertial frame

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Trajectory in Sun-centered ecliptic frame

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Meteoroid flux and properties

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Meteoroid directionality in body-fixed frame

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