MESSENGER Mercury Updates.

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CommonMan

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Nice clear pictures! Funny how we can take clear, sharp pictures of a world far, far away, but we can not get one clear picture of all the ufos here on earth. :?
 
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3488

Guest
CommonMan":mo0vd3b5 said:
Nice clear pictures! Funny how we can take clear, sharp pictures of a world far, far away, but we can not get one clear picture of all the ufos here on earth. :?

Hi CommonMan,

Strange comment!!!!!!!!!!!! Perhaps it's because UFOs are not real???????

Hi everyone,

This week's update.

Izquierdo Basin, a newly named 170 KM wide lava flooded basin on Mercury.

Izquierdo_2.png


Countdown to encounter #3: Tuesday 29th September 2009.

28 Days.
2 Hours.
39 Minutes.
45 Seconds.

Andrew Brown.
 
3

3488

Guest
Interesting update this week, concerning the objectives of the third MESSENGER encounter with Mercury coming up on: Tuesday 29th September 2009.

Some information here.

More information here.

Most of the targeted observations are on the outbound leg of the encounter & are summarised below.

An unnamed crater with unusual bright material on its floor.

An unnamed crater with a set of young ejecta rays that are light blue in the enhanced-color view.

Crater Lermontov. The bright yellowish color in the enhanced-color image and the irregularly shaped depressions on its floor may be evidence of past explosive volcanic activity.

North of crater Homer. An area with an interesting mix of both light blue ejecta and bright orange materials.

Near crater Titian. Enhanced-color images show a region of comparatively deep blue material that is dark and of a different composition than the majority of Mercury's surface.

Common plains material. This target resembles a type of material that covers much of Mercury.

An unnamed crater with an intriguing bright yellow-orange color in enhanced-color views.

Ray material from a spectacular rayed crater in Mercury's north. The ray material appears bright blue in enhanced color.

A common area of Mercury's surface that will be viewed by MASCS very obliquely.


During the inbound leg, a previously unimaged swathe & a tiny area around the south pole will be imaged. Mercury will then be nearly 99% imaged by the end of this encounter.

General release.

Newly named 80 KM wide Crater Eastman.

eastman_ver2.png


Countdown to encounter #3: Tuesday 29th September 2009.

20 Days.
22 Hours.
47 Minutes.
15 Seconds.

Andrew Brown.
 
3

3488

Guest
This week's update.

Further details about Encounter #3.

It looks like the entire inbound crescent will be reimaged at high resolution. This is great news as the angle of approach is different to that of October 2008 & there will be a photographic tie in between the previous inbound & outbound previously unimaged hemispheres, that were seen for the first time last Autumn. This time the narrow unimaged strip between them will be filled.

Out bound, as in last week's entry, regarding targetted observations, but this week confirmed that the entire southern hemisphere will also be imaged at high resolution, as did not happen in October last year as the northern out bound hemisphere got that attention.

At the end of this encounter, something close to 99% of Mercury will have been imaged.

Countdown to encounter #3: Tuesday 29th September 2009.

12 Days.
23 Hours.
17 Minutes.
15 Seconds.

Andrew Brown.
 
3

3488

Guest
Thanks Wayne,

I'm finally back. After a few days away my health has been very difficult & am on new medication.

Anyway,

Map of coverage of Third Encounter.

My own enlargement of first encounter three view of crescent Mercury.
MercuryThirdEncouner1MESSENGER.jpg


Countdown to encounter #3: Tuesday 29th September 2009.

2 Days.
23 Hours.
30 Minutes.
15 Seconds.

Andrew Brown.
 
F

freya

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Andrew, hope all goes well for you. We need your input :)
Has the bright crater near the top of the crecent (apologies, my Hermian knowledge is sadly lacking),
been identified in any Earth based observations, current or historical? It's a real eye catcher.
Go Messenger!
 
M

MeteorWayne

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http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/d ... php?id=133

Sept 26
MESSENGER’s mission design and navigation teams met Friday at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., to discuss the spacecraft’s current trajectory to determine if a last-minute corrective maneuver would be needed. According to the latest trajectory determination from the navigation team, the spacecraft is very close to its intended flight path, and no correction is necessary.

“The spacecraft is less than 100 meters from the flyby altitude of 228 kilometers,” said APL’s Eric Finnegan, the MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer. “Once again, the guidance, navigation, and control teams have been successful in passively solar sailing the spacecraft towards the targeted aim point, conserving propellant for potential future exploration.”

On Friday afternoon, the deep space network antennas locked in on MESSENGER for continuous coverage. The command load for the encounter has been completed and verified. The first part of the command load is onboard the spacecraft and ready for execution starting tonight. The spacecraft will continue to gather approach images, while the operations team monitors the spacecraft. You can view the latest image online at

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sci ... age_id=328.

CN0162359963M_RA_3_web.png
 
M

MeteorWayne

Guest
Current conditions:

Conditions at UTC 14:37:00 (hh:mm:ss)

Time Until Closest Approach: 1:07:17:58 (d:hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 385,915 km (239,796 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 36.4%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 9.87 km/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 69.07 km/pixel


UV Spectrometer Scan Imaging is about to begin.

UV Spectrometer Scan Imaging
The Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer instrument boresight sweeps North to South through the Mercury magnetotail and corona during flyby approach. The observation seeks to determine variations in interplanetary hydrogen and to define the extent and variation of sodium near Mercury. Magnetotail observations are obtained along the Mercury-Sun line with the scan heights 1.5 times the size of Mercury on either side of the Mercury-Sun line. The UV spectrometer is also used to gather spectra for specific targeted observations of Mercury's surface. To gather such surface spectra, the UV spectrometer stares at at one spot on Mercury's surface for about 30 seconds.
 
M

MeteorWayne

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One Day to Mercury Flyby 3!
MESSENGER’s engineering and operations teams convened at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., this morning to confirm the health and readiness of the spacecraft. “All spacecraft sub-systems and instruments reported nominal operations, indicating that MESSENGER was ready for its third encounter with Mercury,” said MESSENGER Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan of APL.

At 10:28 a.m. the last bits of data from the spacecraft were received as it transitioned from high-gain downlink to beacon-only operations, turning towards the planet to start the approach tail-sweep sequence with the Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer instrument. This morning, the spacecraft returned this image, revealing some of the last areas of terrain not before seen at close range by spacecraft. Higher-resolution images of these areas will be obtained tomorrow when the spacecraft is closer to the planet.

For the next 30 hours, the spacecraft will take repetitive scans through Mercury’s comet-like anti-sunward tail, pausing now and then to take a color image and a high-resolution mosaic of Mercury with the Mercury Dual Imaging System instrument.

The operations team will now prepare for the period of time after the closest approach point [tomorrow at 5:54:56 p.m.], approximately eight minutes after which the spacecraft will pass behind the planet and lose contact with Earth for a period of 51 minutes. “We will reestablish a high-rate data link with the spacecraft on Tuesday evening at 9:34 p.m., followed by playback of the data stored in the solid-state recorder starting at 11:39 p.m.,” Finnegan adds.

“MESSENGER is now on its own to carry out the command sequence developed by the all of the dedicated engineers and scientist of the MESSENGER flight team,” Finnegan says. “I look forward to the future scientific discoveries to be found in this new dataset.”
 
M

MeteorWayne

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Less than 6 hours away from the start of intense flyby operations.


Conditions at UTC 14:03:00 (hh:mm:ss)

Time Until Closest Approach: 07:51:58 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 98,866 km (61,432 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 40.0%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 2.53 km/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 17.69 km/pixel
 
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MeteorWayne

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Under 50,000 km from the surface; about 1 3/4 hours from intense observations, less than 4 until Close Approach (CA)


Conditions at UTC 17:59:00 (hh:mm:ss)

Time Until Closest Approach: 03:55:58 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 49,815 km (30,954 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 39.0%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 1.27 km/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 8.92 km/pixel
 
M

MeteorWayne

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Encounter Observations have started, beginning with NAC (Narrow Angle Camera) Frame.

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 19:46:17 UTC

Primary Instrument
Narrow Angle Camera
Time Until Closest Approach: 02:08:41 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 27,130 km (16,858 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 33.9%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 716.36 m/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 5.01 km/pixel
Surface Coordinates At Image Center: 0.47 º N 56.46 E

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/encountersm3/index.php
 
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MeteorWayne

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Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 19:50:31 UTC

Primary InstrumentTime Until Closest Approach: 02:04:27 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 26,224 km (16,295 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 33.4%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: None
WAC Resolution At Image Center: None
Surface Coordinates At Sensor Center: None
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
2 hours to closest approach:

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 19:54:56 UTC

Primary Instrument
Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer
Time Until Closest Approach: 02:00:02 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 25,277 km (15,707 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 33.3%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: None
WAC Resolution At Image Center: None
Surface Coordinates At Sensor Center: None
 
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MeteorWayne

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The first round of UV obs have ended...there's a short gap until the next event, the NAC Mosaic.

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 20:32:57 UTC

Until Closest Approach: 01:22:01 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 17,064 km (10,603 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 29.6%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 468.82 m/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 3.28 km/pixel
Surface Coordinates At Image Center: 5.61 º N 50.80 º E
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
Narrow Angle Camera Mosaic underway:

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 20:35:57 UTC

Primary Instrument
Narrow Angle Camera

Time Until Closest Approach: 01:19:01 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 16,410 km (10,197 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 29.0%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 438.09 m/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 3.07 km/pixel
Surface Coordinates At Image Center: 42.20 º N 100.66 º E
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
Narrow Angle Camera view of the illuminated hemisphere is complete, back to UV obs up until eclipse.

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 20:43:30 UTC

Primary Instrument
Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer
Time Until Closest Approach: 01:11:28 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 14,759 km (9,171 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 28.0%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: None
WAC Resolution At Image Center: None
Surface Coordinates At Sensor Center: None
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
The spacecraft is now in Hermean shadow, total eclipse. All observations are suspended.

Next up is Laser Altimeter observations near the top of the hour.. closest approach in minutes away.
 
M

MeteorWayne

Guest
I'm a little confused. One source is telling me there are no obs going on, another tells me LAser Altimeter is active.

Closest approach now.

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 21:55:29 UTC

Primary Instrument
Laser Altimeter
Time Since Closest Approach: 00:00:31 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 231 km (144 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 0.0%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 8.40 m/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 58.79 m/pixel
Surface Coordinates At Sensor Center: 0.22 º S 209.94 º E
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
10 minutes after CA, look at the altitude.

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 22:04:58 UTC

Primary Instrument
Laser Altimeter
Time Since Closest Approach: 00:10:00 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 1,302 km (809 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 34.7%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 33.35 m/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 233.48 m/pixel
Surface Coordinates At Sensor Center: 0.22 º S 265.32 º E


Next up is visible and IR spectroscopy.
 
M

MeteorWayne

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Narrow Angle Camera departure mosaic underway.

Conditions at 29 Sep 2009 22:45:17 UTC

Time Since Closest Approach: 00:50:19 (hh:mm:ss)
Altitude: 10,087 km (6,268 mi)
Visible Surface Sunlit: 81.1%
NAC Resolution At Image Center: 265.03 m/pixel
WAC Resolution At Image Center: 1.86 km/pixel
Surface Coordinates At Image Center: 8.52 º S 331.55 º E
 
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