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MESSENGER mission results
Article By:
Fassett, Caleb I. Department of Astronomy, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts.
Last reviewed:2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.YB150522
The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission is the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury and has greatly extended our knowledge of the innermost planet. MESSENGER was launched in 2004 and subsequently executed flybys of Earth, Venus (twice), and Mercury (three times). The primary motivation for these flybys was to reduce the required propulsion for Mercury orbit insertion on March 18, 2011. In addition, the three MESSENGER flybys of Mercury allowed its camera to image much of the planet's surface that had never before been seen. Once MESSENGER was in orbit, an imaging campaign was undertaken for its entire surface, expanding this coverage even further. A complete global image mosaic of the surface was finished on December 30, 2012 (Fig. 1).
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