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MESSENGER

Image: NASA / JHU/APL · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Planetary science

MESSENGER

Completed

NASA

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Image: NASA / JHU/APL · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Launched
3 Aug 200406:15:57 UTC
Last contact
30 Apr 2015
End declared
30 Apr 2015
Duration
10 years 8 months
Destinations
Mercury

The first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. Over four years it mapped the whole planet and found water ice in permanently shadowed craters near the poles.

Milestones

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20062008201020122014

Spacecraft

MESSENGER

Orbiter
Completed

Orbiter that worked behind a ceramic-cloth sunshade, carrying seven instruments and a radio science experiment.

Launch mass
1,108 kg
Dry mass
513 kg
Size
1.4 m × 1.9 m, span 6 m
Power
Solar
Last contact
30 Apr 2015
End declared
30 Apr 2015
Designator
2004-030A

Mission details from science.nasa.gov.