R.I.P. MESSENGER: NASA’s Mercury mission spacecraft finally rests on the planet

An unmanned NASA spacecraft has crashed on the surface of the planet Mercury, after it ran out of fuel following a successful 11-year mission, the US space agency said Thursday. MESSENGER is only the second spacecraft sent to Mercury. Mariner 10 flew past it three times in 1974 and 1975 and gathered detailed data on less than half the surface. MESSENGER took advantage of an ingenious trajectory design, lightweight materials, and miniaturization of electronics, all developed in the three decades since Mariner 10 flew past Mercury. Shown below is the MESSENGER spacecraft, designed by NASA.

The MESSENGER probe -- short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging -- was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, and issued a final farewell on Twitter shortly before its demise at 3:26 pm (1926 GMT).

NASA had known about the issue that MESSENGER ran out of fuel and would crash down to Mercury at speeds of almost 4 km per second and would create a crater approximately 16 meters wide. There was no way that NASA could control the spacecraft and make adjustments to its orbit. Messenger crashed into the planet on April 30, 2015. Below is a video released by NASA a few days before the final impact.

Before touching down to its grave, MESSENGER sent back a final image of the planet’s surface. The image is located within the floor of the 93-kilometer-diameter crater Jokai. The spacecraft struck the planet just north of Shakespeare basin.

NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft traveled more than six and a half years before it was inserted into orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011.

NASA held a media and public event at 1 pm EDT on Thursday, April 16, 2015, to share scientific findings and technical accomplishments of the agency’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft. NASA celebrated MESSENGER’s mission prior to surface impact of Mercury.

Launched in August 2004, MESSENGER traveled 4.9 billion miles (7.9 billion kilometers) - a journey that included 15 trips around the sun and flybys of Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury three times - before it was inserted into orbit around its target planet in March 2011. The spacecraft's cameras and other sophisticated, high-technology instruments have collected unprecedented images and made other observations. Mission managers are preparing to impact Mercury’ surface in the next couple weeks.

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of its launch, the MESSENGER team released this movie showing a flyover of Mercury. The movie is sped up by a factor of seven for ease of viewing

MESSENGER captured the below image in the flyover movie during this flight path over Mercury's north polar region.

This image of Mercury, acquired by the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) aboard NASA's MESSENGER mission on April 23, 2013, allows us to take a step back to view the planet. Prior to the MESSENGER mission, Mercury's surface was often compared to the surface of Earth's moon, when in fact, Mercury and the moon are very different. This image in particular highlights many basins near Mercury's terminator, including Bach crater. Many craters with central peaks and the nearby bright rays of Han Kan crater are also evident.

It looks like even the craters on Mercury have heard of Bob Ross! The central peaks of this complex crater have formed in such a way that it resembles a smiling face. This image taken by the MESSENGER spacecraft is oriented so north is toward the bottom.

At 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before down linking some of the data to Earth.

About 58 minutes before MESSENGER's closest approach to Mercury on Oct. 6, 2008, its Narrow Angle Camera captured this close-up image.

On April 30, 2015, this region of Mercury's surface will have had a new crater! Traveling at 3.91 kilometers per second (over 8,700 miles per hour), the MESSENGER spacecraft collided with Mercury's surface, creating a crater estimated to be 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter.

Originally planned to orbit Mercury for one year, the mission exceeded all expectations, lasting for over four years and acquiring extensive datasets with its seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation. The Mercury Atmosphere and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) instrument aboard NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft was designed to study both the exosphere and surface of the planet Mercury. To learn more about the minerals and surface processes on Mercury, the Visual and Infrared Spectrometer (VIRS) portion of MASCS has been diligently collecting single tracks of spectral surface measurements since MESSENGER entered Mercury orbit on March 17, 2011.

Image credits and inputs: NASA