MESSENGER

NASA

The first craft to orbit Mercury, mapping all of it over four years before crashing into it in 2015.

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The flight

August 3, 2004
Launch
August 2, 2005
Flies past Earth, 8,718 km away
October 24, 2006
Flies past Venus, 9,045 km away
June 5, 2007
Flies past Venus, 6,390 km away
January 14, 2008
Flies past Mercury, 2,646 km away
October 6, 2008
Flies past Mercury, 2,644 km away
September 29, 2009
Flies past Mercury, 2,670 km away
March 11, 2011
Arrives at Mercury
May 1, 2015
JPL’s track of it ends

From the trajectory NASA JPL Horizons publishes for it.

MESSENGER

NASA mission to Mercury

MESSENGER was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury's chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The name is an acronym for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, and a reference to the messenger god Mercury from Roman mythology.

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Facts

What it is: Orbiter
Agency: NASA

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