On June 21, the Messenger spacecraft performed its last planned "inversion" maneuver
The MESSENGER spacecraft, making its way to the planet Hema, performed its final planned "flip" maneuver on June 21, responding to commands sent from the MESSENGER control center at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, using an antenna NASA's Deep Space Network near Goldstone, California. The spacecraft rotated 180 degrees, and pointed her sun visor at the sun.
The maneuver, which lasted 16 minutes, was designed to keep MESSENGER in an operational state and at a reasonable temperature as it approaches the Sun. The engineers received a clear signal indicating the success of the maneuver which was done at a distance of 196.5 million kilometers from the Earth and 144.6 million kilometers from the Sun.
Messenger has turned its back to the Sun since the March 8 solstice, which allowed it to maintain safe zone temperatures greater than 0.95 AU from the Sun. The mission plans are to keep the spacecraft shielded from the sun for the rest of its journey as well as during its scientific activity when it orbits Hema.
"The initial indications look good," said mission operations manager Mark Holdridge of Johns Hopkins. "The temperature in the spaceship drops as expected and all the systems and devices are functioning."
The team will now turn their attention to preparations for the first flyby of Venus on October 24. "We performed simulations and flight experiments designed to test the actions we would have to perform during the approach to Venus," Holdridge said.
"The spacecraft will experience a 57-minute solar eclipse during operation in October, so we can test the flight systems to make sure they will behave properly during the eclipse period. On August 11, for example, the crew will perform flight tests of the spacecraft's new autonomy that will turn off components before the eclipse, allowing the battery to discharge At a time similar to that of the real eclipse, and then, to turn on the systems, when the battery will be charged, and all this in a controlled mode in the real-time monitoring of the experiment as well will test battery status. Later, in August and early September, during the approach to Venus, the MESSENGER navigation team will use the spacecraft's dual camera to take a series of navigation images. The images are not required for the Venus approach flight, but will be used by the MESSENGER team for resetting and training Using the optical navigation system in the planet Hama.
Additional articles on the subject:
Mercury Messenger - a spacecraft on its way to Mercury (Popular Science)
Mercury Messenger visited the Earth a year after its launch
The Mercury Messenger spacecraft broke the laser transmission record
Mercury Messenger's Israeli connection: a Ricor micro-fridge
