One and a half million kilometers between MESSENGER and Venus. The team has posted this message on the website.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Five hours and about 84,000 miles until closest approach to Venus.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Say hello to Venus, Messenger.

It is 223 days until Messenger from Man meets the Messenger of the Gods.

The spacecraft is crossing Venusion orbit and will stay outside of Venus for the next several days. Venus will cross in front of it during that time. Messenger will then being falling toward Mercury.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

MESSENGER Completes Second Flyby of Venus,
Makes Its Way toward First Flyby of Mercury in 33 Years

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

First images are here. If you have wondered why there are so few visual light images of Venus, just look the picture and you know why.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

MESSENGER has reached its last perihelion outside of Venusian orbit. It will cross inside for the final time around the beginning of July.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

I'm guessing that this is not the final time that it will be outside the orbit of Venus. It will not encounter Mercury for another 200 days or so, which is enough for more than one of its current orbits. I'm guessing it will be out this way again in November.

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Forming opinions as we speak

The APL website is conveniently down

This is the last time that MESSENGER is beyond Venus. It will fall into toward the sun for the rest of the year and into the next. It will encounter Mercury at the end of its fourth orbit in January and hit perhelion of the fifth orbit shortly after.

The Mercury encounter will slow it down enough so that it will remain in the vicinity of Mercury's orbit for the rest of its existence.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

The way you phrased that last sentence made me feel kinda sorry for it. Imagine spending your entire existence staring at one little planet.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

I read "I have no mouth and I must scream" recently. So now when I think of ultimate fates, I tend to reference the ending of that story.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

^
OT: Is that a great story or what!

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"Call me old-fashioned, but I think fire is magic. And it scares me a lot."

--The State

Anyway, the APL websites for both the MESSENGER and the New Horizons missions are off-line. However, I had previously noted that MESSENGER would cross Venus orbit sometime this weekend. The next notable event will be the end of the fourth orbit and the first Mercury encounter--sometime in January.

Disturbing, nightmarish yeah, great story.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Messenger is finishing its fourth orbit within the next few hours. Antoniseb, you are right. I had forgotten how fast things move in this region of the solar system. I was thinking it would take longer for Messenger to reach Mercury's orbit. As it is, it is almost there (~16,000,000 km away). It will reach perihelion on the 28th.

This is how things stand. On 16 August: Mercury, the Sun, Messenger, Venus and the Earth will be in a rough line in that order. Messenger is presently on a very elliptical orbit that will take it just BEYOND Venusion orbit (the aphelion of its previous orbit). Mercury will stay 180 degrees ahead of Messenger while the probe is in the vicinity and will have completed a full orbit at about the time Messenger drops (this for the final time) inside of Venus. This will place the probe about 90 degrees ahead of Mercury on 25 October this fall.

Mercury will catch up to Messenger as it falls in to finish its fifth orbit on 28 December. The two will encounter on 15 Jan 2008. The probe will then make one orbit in the time that Mercury makes two orbits and will make its second encounter on 9 Oct 2008. Three more orbits and Messenger will encounter its target for the third time on 1 Oct 2009. By this time, Messenger's orbit will take it only slightly outside Mercury orbit and will take five orbits for Mercury to be in place for orbital capture on 18 March 2011.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

That's easy to do when most of the missions are going away from the Sun and take years or decades to get where they are going. Note that things not only move faster, but also have much less distance to travel.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Messenger is at its 5th perihelion since launch just a third of an AU from the Sun. It is closer to the our central star than Mariner 10 ever was. It is pretty much at Mercury orbit, though Mercury is on the other side of the sun at the moment. Messenger will be here again in 167 days.

EDIT:
Oops, I'm off by a few days. According to the The Messenger Team's update, perihelion is tomorrow. From the webpage:

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

How come nobody noticed my lousy math? Messenger's encounter will happen in 136 days

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

I noticed, because it was very close to two full Mercury orbits, and so Mercury won't be there to affect the orbit in 167 days, but I didn't see the necessity to point out the error, since in January we will all be buzzing about the upcoming encounter and cool images.

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Forming opinions as we speak

I just figured everyone had Johns Hopkins University MESSENGER on their desktop and were watching, like:

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

The total distance travelled by MESSENGER from launch to orbit insertion is ~53 AU, the distance from Earth to the outer edge of the Kuiper belt. All this just to travel the 0.6 AU from Earth to Mercury. It's a bit boggling, really.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

I always compare it to running down a steep mountainside and trying to stop on a dime. Messenger is essentially going down switchbacks to reach the desired point on the gravity well.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

Hmm... 53 AU to go 0.6 AU...

About a 1.1% grade. Reasonable.

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Planetary Society Weblog: MESSENGER is on target for its January Mercury flyby

Johns Hopkins University: Messenger Mission News

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It is also worth noting that Mercury is where it will be in 88 days, which is where Messenger will pass it one Mercury orbit from now.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Some photos to wet your appetite - Mariner 10 Image Archive
http://ser.sese.asu.edu/M10/image_archive.html

Messenger is now further from the Sun than Venus, beginning this several day long situation for the final time. From here on, it will be getting less and less elliptical in its orbit, until it matches Mercury's closely enough that it can perform a breaking and capture maneuver. 81 days till the first Mercury fly-by.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Messenger will never be this far from the Sun again. Near its next perihelion it will have an encounter with Mercury that will take away orbital energy, and drop its aphelion considerably.

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Forming opinions as we speak

I was thinking it would hit its 5th aphelion tomorrow. Though I gotta say it was difficult to tell from the animation. Messenger has a couple of weeks yet to spend outside of Venusian orbit, then it will stay inside that orbit for the rest of eternity.

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Keeper of the Jabberwock

It's a bit like watching a water clock.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

True enough, but it is a bit more exciting than watching the progress of New Horizons (a great mission, but sssslllloooowww).

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Forming opinions as we speak

They're about the same in terms of distance and yawn factor (though MESSENGER has a two-year headstart). But at least with New Horizons, every now and again you can shout things like, "Hey! We just passed Chiron! ... Well we didn't but we would have if Chiron was exactly where we are now instead of the other side of the Sun!" With this trip it's "Well, now we're heading for Mercury's orbit. And now we're back in Venus's orbit. And now we're in Mercury's orbit. And yes, now Venus's orbit again."

I can't even pretend this trip isn't boring.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.