Messenger spacecraft poised for insertion into Mercury orbit Thursday
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 15:32
in Astronomy & Space
Mission managers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Maryland will put the brakes on the desk-sized NASA orbiter so it can go into polar orbit around the closest planet to the sun. If successful, it will beam a year's worth of images and other data back to Earth.Fifteen years of planning and 6-1/2 years of maneuvering in space will all come down to the crunch Thursday evening as mission managers in Maryland try to slip NASA's Messenger spacecraft into orbit around Mercury.