MESSENGER Launch Celebration Package

Use the information below to learn about the MESSENGER mission and the mysterious planet Mercury. For more information about the mission, or to download educational materials, visit the MESSENGER website at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu.

MESSENGER Information Sheet
Download the information sheet! (PDF/80 KB)

For a more in-depth overview of the MESSENGER mission to Mercury, read the MESSENGER Information Sheet which discusses the challenges the MESSENGER team faces as they send a spacecraft to Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.

Mission Timeline
Download the timeline! (PDF/572 KB)

MESSENGER will take a complicated path from Earth to Mercury. On its journey it will fly by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury three times before entering Mercurian orbit in 2011. To see the dates of these maneuvers refer to the Mission Timeline.

MESSENGER Spacecraft Payload
Download payload information! (PDF/92 KB)

The MESSENGER mission has many goals, including unlocking the mysteries of Mercury’s high density and the origin of its magnetic field. To meet these goals, the spacecraft needs a variety of instruments. Use the MESSENGER Spacecraft Payload to see all of the instruments MESSENGER has on board and what they will measure.

Mercury Lithograph
Download the lithograph! (PDF/87 KB)

MESSENGER will be only the second spacecraft to study Mercury; the first being Mariner 10, which flew by the planet in the 1970s and photographed half of it. The Mercury Lithograph contains images from that mission in addition to a mission overview, significant dates in Mercurian exploration, and fast facts about Mercury.

This lithograph is one of NASA’s educational products and is available online at http://spacelink.nasa.gov/products/

Mercury - The Elusive Planet
Download The Elusive Planet! (PDF/71 KB)

We have learned a lot about Mercury from Mariner 10 and hope to learn a lot more from the MESSENGER mission. To appreciate our current understanding of Mercury, refer to Mercury - The Elusive Planet.

MESSENGER FAQ
Visit the web site!

The MESSENGER mission has many components including mission goals, spacecraft design, and the spacecrafts journey. To understand the nuances of each mission component, refer to the MESSENGER FAQ, an online resource to answer the most frequently asked questions about the MESSENGER mission.

MESSENGER FAQ’s are from the MESSENGER web site and are available online at http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/faq/index.html.

MESSENGER Web Site Animations
Visit the web site!

A picture says a thousand words. You can read descriptions of the Sun’s appearance from the surface of Mercury, or the shape of Mercury’s orbit, but a more effective method for visualizing these processes is to watch animations of these phenomena in action. There are six different MESSENGER Web Site Animations to help kids explore the dynamic systems of Mercury and the MESSENGER mission.

These animations are from the MESSENGER website and are available online at
http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/MESSENGER/animationpage.htm