Mercury Orbit Insertion from Above
Animations (March 2010 update) of Mercury and the spacecraft path from:
above Mercury's north pole
Highlights (March 2010 update) for Mercury Orbit Insertion
Minimum altitude above Mercury one orbit after orbit insertion:
200.0 kilometers (124.3 miles) on March 18, 2011 12:48 pm UTC
Maximum spacecraft speed relative to center of Mercury
one orbit after orbit insertion:
3.810 kilometers per second (2.368 miles per second or 8524 miles per hour)
Distance from Earth and Sun (1 AU = average Earth-Sun distance):
Earth-spacecraft: 1.0365 AU (155.06 million kilometers, 96.35 million miles)
Sun-spacecraft: 0.3084 AU (46.138 million kilometers, 28.669 million miles)
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Source: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_missi...
MESSENGER Mercury Orbit Insertion Press Kit (PDF): http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room...