Update: Dream up a caption…
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From the JHU APL website… The last sentence is the amazing one. That is so close to the mark as to be awe-inspiring, at least it is to me.
Ten Days from Orbit Insertion
Ten days from now – on March 17 EDT – the MESSENGER spacecraft will execute a 15-minute maneuver that will place it into orbit about Mercury, making it the first craft ever to do so, and initiating a one-year science campaign to understand the innermost planet.
Starting today, antennas from each of the three Deep Space Network (DSN) ground stations will begin a round-the-clock vigil, allowing flight control engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., to monitor MESSENGER on its final approach to Mercury.
At 10:40 a.m. this morning, the spacecraft began executing the last cruise command sequence of the mission. This command load will execute until next Monday, when the command sequence containing the orbit-insertion burn will start.
“This is a milestone event for our small, but highly experienced, operations team, marking the end of six and one half years of successfully shepherding the spacecraft through six planetary flybys, five major propulsive maneuvers, and sixteen trajectory-correction maneuvers, all while simultaneously preparing for orbit injection and primary mission operations,” says MESSENGER Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan. “Whatever the future holds, this team of highly dedicated engineers (http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/moc/index.html) has done a phenomenal job methodically generating, testing, and verifying commands to the spacecraft, getting MESSENGER where it is today.”
The mission operations team now turns its attention to the final preparations for the insertion burn next week and establishing nominal operations for the primary mission. As with the last three approaches to Mercury, the navigation team and the guidance and control team have been successfully using the solar radiation of the Sun to carefully adjust the trajectory of the spacecraft toward the optimum point in space and time to start the orbit-insertion maneuver.
As of the most recent navigation report on February 22, the spacecraft was less than 5 kilometers and less than three seconds from the target arrival point
the spacecraft was less than 5 kilometers and less than three seconds from the target arrival point
That is truly amazing…
Caption:
“No, no!! I am a rainbow trout!!”
Sounds like they’ve got a good handle on things.
Another caption? Jeezum crow now I have to work when I come here. Hmm. Nothing coming to me. But it does remind me of this. (Stick with it)
Bah. Html fail. Try this link.
Roly-poly fish heads! Dr. Demento rulez.
They must have been using top-notch drugs when they made this one.
LK, you beat me to the tune! Darn you to heck.
I’m absolutely amazed at the accuracy that NASA has been getting with its satellites. Especially MESSENGER, with all of the trajectory changes it has made, as pointed out in TFA.
Anyone for a get-together at APL? Celebration ceremony?
My first thought upon seeing that pic was an Alien-esk “Please…God…kill me”