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Missions to Mercury

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Abstract

Mercury is a very difficult planet to observe from the Earth, and space missions that target Mercury are essential for a comprehensive understanding of the planet. At the same time, it is also difficult to orbit because it is deep inside the Sun’s gravitational well. Only one mission has visited Mercury; that was Mariner 10 in the 1970s. This paper provides a brief history of Mariner 10 and the numerous imaginative but unsuccessful mission proposals since the 1970s for another Mercury mission. In the late 1990s, two missions—MESSENGER and BepiColombo—received the go-ahead; MESSENGER is on its way to its first encounter with Mercury in January 2008. The history, scientific objectives, mission designs, and payloads of both these missions are described in detail.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland

    André Balogh

  2. Research and Scientific Support Department, ESA, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

    Réjean Grard & Rita Schulz

  3. Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC, 20015, USA

    Sean C. Solomon

  4. Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay, France

    Yves Langevin

  5. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Tokyo, Japan

    Yasumasa Kasaba & Masaki Fujimoto

Authors
  1. André Balogh
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  2. Réjean Grard
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  3. Sean C. Solomon
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  4. Rita Schulz
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  5. Yves Langevin
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  6. Yasumasa Kasaba
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  7. Masaki Fujimoto
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Correspondence to André Balogh.

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Balogh, A., Grard, R., Solomon, S.C. et al. Missions to Mercury. Space Sci Rev 132, 611–645 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-007-9212-4

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