21-March-2008, 09:24 PM
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Vulcan Administrator
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Greenbelt, MD
Posts: 26,002
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Critical Deep-Space Maneuver Targets MESSENGER for Its Second Mercury Encounter
Quote:
The MESSENGER spacecraft delivered a critical deep-space maneuver today – 64 million miles (103 million kilometers) from Earth – successfully firing its large bi-propellant engine to change the probe’s trajectory and target it for its second flyby of Mercury on October 6, 2008. This was the first trajectory-correction maneuver (TCM) to test the continuous slow rotation of the spacecraft throughout the burn, essential for the March 18, 2011, Mercury orbit-insertion (MOI) maneuver.
“Every propulsive event in this complex mission is an important step toward our ultimate goal – placing the first spacecraft into orbit about the innermost planet,” offers MESSENGER Principal Investigator Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “Today’s deep-space maneuver is a crucial milestone that points us cleanly toward our next close look at Mercury in October.”
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