MESSENGER was launched on August 3, 2004, and it began orbiting Mercury on March 18, 2011.
The spacecraft completed its primary science objectives by March 2012. Because its initial discoveries raised important new questions and the payload remained healthy, the mission was extended twice, allowing the probe to make observations from low altitudes and capture images and information about the planet in unprecedented detail.
Last month, the MESSENGER team embarked on a hover campaign that allowed the spacecraft at its closest approach to operate within a narrow band of altitudes, 5 to 35 km above the planet’s surface.
On April 28, the team successfully executed the last of seven orbit-correction maneuvers (the last four of which were conducted entirely with helium pressurant after the remaining liquid hydrazine had been depleted).
With no way to increase its altitude, the probe was finally unable to resist the perturbations to its orbit by the Sun’s gravitational pull, and it crashed into the planet, creating a new crater up to 52 feet (15.8 m) wide.
“Today we bid a fond farewell to one of the most resilient and accomplished spacecraft ever to have explored our neighboring planets,” said Dr Sean Solomon of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who is MESSENGER’s Principal Investigator.
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