NASA spacecraft to crash into Mercury in two weeks

After more than four years of orbiting Mercury, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft will crash into the solar system’s innermost planet in two weeks when it runs out of propellant.

NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, which was launched in 2004, will impact the planet’s surface, most likely on April 30, the U.S. space agency said.

The spacecraft will impact Mercury at more than 3.91 kilometres per second on the side of the planet facing away from Earth.

Due to the expected location, engineers will be unable to view in real time the exact location of impact.

This week, mission



operators in mission control at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, completed the fourth in a series of orbit correction manoeuvres designed to delay the spacecraft’s impact into the surface of Mercury.

The last manoeuvre is scheduled for April 24.

“Following this last manoeuvre, we will finally declare the spacecraft out of propellant, as this manoeuvre will deplete nearly all of our remaining helium gas,” said Daniel O’Shaughnessy, mission systems engineer at APL.

“At that point, the spacecraft will no longer be capable of fighting the downward push of the sun’s gravity,” he said.