MESSENGER Zeros In On Mercury

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/status_report_12_19_07.html

MESSENGER Mission News
December 19, 2007
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MESSENGER ZEROS IN ON MERCURY

MESSENGER's nineteenth trajectory-correction maneuver (TCM-19)
completed
on December 19 lasted 110 seconds and adjusted the spacecraft's
velocity
by 1.1 meters per second (3.6 feet per second). The movement targeted
the spacecraft close to the intended aim point 200 km (124 miles)
above
the night-side surface of Mercury for the probe's first flyby of that
planet on January 14, 2008.

The maneuver started at 5:00 p.m. EDT. Mission controllers at The
Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md.,
verified the start of TCM-19 about 13 minutes later, after the first
signals indicating thruster activity reached NASA's Deep Space Network
tracking station outside Canberra, Australia.

"The MESSENGER spacecraft's TCM-19 is one in a series of potential
course correction opportunities planned in advance of the first
Mercury
flyby," explained APL's Eric Finnegan, MESSENGER's Mission Systems
Engineer. "TCM-19 corrected small deviations in the trajectory
remaining
after the successful execution of the deep-space maneuver on October
18."

"We're now set for our flyby," added MESSENGER Principal Investigator
Sean Solomon. "Achieving our aim point not only will give us our first
close-up view of Mercury in nearly 33 years; it will ensure that we
continue on the trajectory needed to place, for the first time, a
spacecraft into orbit around the innermost planet three years later."

For graphics of MESSENGER's orientation during the maneuver, visit the
"Trajectory Correction Maneuvers" section of the mission Web site at
http://messenger/the_mission/maneuvers.html .

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MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and
Ranging) is a NASA-sponsored scientific investigation of the planet
Mercury and the first space mission designed to orbit the planet
closest
to the Sun. The MESSENGER spacecraft launched on August 3, 2004, and
after flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury will start a yearlong study
of
its target planet in March 2011. Dr. Sean C. Solomon, of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, leads the mission as principal
investigator.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built and
operates
the MESSENGER spacecraft and manages this Discovery-class mission for
NASA.

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