| Name |
Launch
Date |
Launch rocket |
Weight
(kg) |
Mission |
| Mariner 10 (USA) |
03-Nov-73 |
Atlas-Centaur |
503 kg |
The first Mercury encounter took place at 20:47 UT on March 29, 1974 at a range of 703 kilometres. |
| MESSENGER (USA) |
03-Aug-04 |
Delta II |
1100 kg |
- Messenger probe flew past Mercury at 200 km altitude at 1904 UTC on Jan 14, 2008. This was the first Mercury encounter since Mariner 10 in 1975.
- The Messenger probe reached a record low orbit of 23 x 10610 km x 83.5 deg on Sep 12, 2014.
An engine burn then raised periapsis, making the orbit 92 x 10610 km.
- The Messenger space probe crashed into Mercury on April 30, 2015 after running out of fuel, ending a nearly 11-year
journey that provided valuable data and thousands of photos.
|
| BepiColombo-MPO |
20 Oct 2018 |
Ariane-5ECA |
4100 kg total mass |
- The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) is building by ESA and will study the surface and internal composition of the planet.
- The flight time to Mercury will be 7.2 years, and BepiColombo (MPO with MMO) will now arrive in December 2025, one year later than previously anticipated. The
seven-year cruise to the innermost planet of our Solar System will include 9 flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury.
|
| BepiColombo-MMO |
20 Oct 2018 |
Ariane-5ECA |
1150 kg in Mercury orbit |
- The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MMO) is building by Japanese space agency ISAS/JAXA, and will study Mercury′s magnetosphere, that is the region
of space around the planet that is dominated by its magnetic field.
|
