Exploration of Mercury

MESSENGER and BepiColombo are intended to gather complementary data to help scientists understand many of the mysteries discovered by Mariner 10's flybys.

The speed required to reach it is relatively high, and its proximity to the Sun makes it difficult to maneuver a spacecraft into a stable orbit around it.

[6] Mariner 10 was a NASA probe whose primary objective was to observe the atmosphere, surface, and physical characteristics of Mercury and Venus.

This allowed the probe to pass by Mercury two additional times before completing the mission; these encounters were made on September 21, 1974, and March 16, 1975.

However, since the same side of Mercury was illuminated during each of the flybys, at the conclusion of the mission Mariner 10 had only photographed approximately 45 percent of its surface.

As the spacecraft was no longer controllable without its nitrogen gas thrusters, a command was sent to the probe to shut down its transmitter.

[11] The visual data also allowed scientists to determine that Mercury had "not experienced significant crustal modification”.

In order to correct the speed of the satellite it undertook several gravitational slingshot flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury.

In November 2012, NASA reported that MESSENGER had discovered a possibility of both water ice and organic compounds in permanently shadowed craters in Mercury's north pole.

[20] In February 2013, NASA published the most detailed and accurate 3D map of Mercury to date, assembled from thousands of images taken by MESSENGER.

Each orbiter has a distinct purpose: the MPO is to acquire images in several wavelengths to map the surface and exosphere composition of Mercury, and Mio's is to study the magnetosphere.

BepiColombo uses solar electric propulsion (ion engines) and similar maneuvers at the Moon, Venus, and Mercury.

[27] Mercury-P (Меркурий-П) is a proposed lander mission to Mercury by the Russian Space Agency.

[citation needed] In August 2020, the Applied Physics Laboratory proposed the Mercury Lander for NASA's New Frontiers program.