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Messenger Probe "End of Mission"

WoofMcMoose

By WoofMcMoose
in Science & Spaceflight

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WoofMcMoose

WoofMcMoose

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Thought this may be of interest (couldn't find a thread already and was somewhat surprised)

After 4 years in orbit of Mercury (and 11 years total in space) the MESSENGER will come to an abrupt end in the next few days when the probe will crash into Mercury.

Having had two mission extensions (plus an extra 6 weeks) the spacecraft is now out of fuel and in fact made its last orbit correction 'burn' using the Helium that was used to pressurise the fuel tanks. One final OCM (Orbit Correction Manoeuvre) is planned for Friday which, assuming adequate Helium remains, will delay impact until the 30th. Best estimate is that it will leave only some debris and a 16m crater.

Details here:

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/final.html

It's worth a poke at some of the science articles on the web page too- this little probe did a lot.

So what do you think are the odds Messenger will still be flying when 1.0 is released!? :)

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Kryten

Kryten

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I will crash a probe into Moho in memory of MESSENGER. You've served the humanity well, faithful one :)

She should get replaced fairly soon, as these things go-ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission launches 2017 and arrives 2024 with current planning. It's certainly a better situation than, say, Saturn (nothing after Cassini until at least the late 2030s or early '40s) or Uranus and Neptune (nothing since Voyager 2).

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Frida Space

Frida Space

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She should get replaced fairly soon, as these things go-ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission launches 2017 and arrives 2024 with current planning. It's certainly a better situation than, say, Saturn (nothing after Cassini until at least the late 2030s or early '40s) or Uranus and Neptune (nothing since Voyager 2).

I would add Venus to the list... Unless Akatsuki pulls off a miracle in December, there's no mission planned for Venus yet, only proposals (the same is true for Saturn).

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Camacha

Camacha

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And more than half of people't comments under articles reporting on this are: "Why are we polluting the space? Stop polluting Mercury!"

Makes you weep over the stupidity of our species.

Admittedly, you would better start early. When we started burning fossil fuels, we could not imagine filling up the air with enough stuff it could be problematic. When we started launching stuff into space more recently, we imagined space being so big and empty that it could never cause problems to have things in orbit. We all know how that went and is going. Let us not make the same mistake again.

Mind you, I am not saying we should not explore space, quite on the contrary. It is good to be mindful of what you are doing though.

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Bill Phil

Bill Phil

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Admittedly, you would better start early. When we started burning fossil fuels, we could not imagine filling up the air with enough stuff it could be problematic. When we started launching stuff into space more recently, we imagined space being so big and empty that it could never cause problems to have things in orbit. We all know how that went and is going. Let us not make the same mistake again.

Mind you, I am not saying we should not explore space, quite on the contrary. It is good to be mindful of what you are doing though.

Kessler Syndrome isn't a huge problem. It's getting bigger every launch, but not much. Eventually it might become too much, but not anytime soon. Only the occasional object really collides. I can list less than half a dozen. An Ariane 4 stage and it's payload a few years after launch... Paint speck and shuttle, Mir and a Progress which was really a computer screw-up...

Space is big. Space is empty. The average size of a satellite isn't very huge. And there's just so much volume in Earth's SOI...

I'll probably launch a spacecraft for MESSENGER. Dedicated to the space probe...

At least you gave us some awesome images of Mercury...

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lajoswinkler

lajoswinkler

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Admittedly, you would better start early. When we started burning fossil fuels, we could not imagine filling up the air with enough stuff it could be problematic. When we started launching stuff into space more recently, we imagined space being so big and empty that it could never cause problems to have things in orbit. We all know how that went and is going. Let us not make the same mistake again.

Mind you, I am not saying we should not explore space, quite on the contrary. It is good to be mindful of what you are doing though.

This has nothing to do with making orbiting difficult. MESSENGER will crash on Mercury. There will be a small field of its parts on Mercury's surface. And the people are screaming about "polluting the universe", "polluting Mercury".

Not only it's terribly stupid because polluting a sterile, scorching hot wasteland is a silly thing to even think about, but also shows how high they think of themselves, as if we're capable of doing anything significant in our solar system. They don't have any understanding about how enormous space is and how little we are.

Even if it was about orbiting, their pathetic cries about pollution do not consider that. They apply "pollution" to a place that can't be even brought into a connection with something like that. They think about the destruction of a living system.

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LordFerret

LordFerret

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From what I've read, they're expecting perhaps a 15-meter impact crater (of what depth?)... would be interesting to see what manner of ejecta it throws up, but I don't think we've anything with power/resolution enough to view it at this point. :/

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Newt

Newt

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From what I've read, they're expecting perhaps a 15-meter impact crater (of what depth?)... would be interesting to see what manner of ejecta it throws up, but I don't think we've anything with power/resolution enough to view it at this point. :/

Well, it is going fast enough to be treated as a meteor, so it will proably follow the general rules for depth. That might suggest about 3m depth, or a bit more. The ejecta will not go far, certainly, probably invisible until the next orbiter mission.

crater-depth.jpg

For those who are interested, a rather interesting site about impact crater formation can be found here. That is the source of the image, and my rough estimate.

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Reddeyfish

Reddeyfish

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And the people are screaming about "polluting the universe", "polluting Mercury".

Not only it's terribly stupid because polluting a sterile, scorching hot wasteland is a silly thing to even think about, but also shows how high they think of themselves, as if we're capable of doing anything significant in our solar system. They don't have any understanding about how enormous space is and how little we are.

Even if it was about orbiting, their pathetic cries about pollution do not consider that. They apply "pollution" to a place that can't be even brought into a connection with something like that. They think about the destruction of a living system.

Shouldn't there be more worry about the pollution here on earth due to the launch stage than about probe bits left on Mercury's surface?

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