Only one space mission so far was aimed to Mercury: Mariner 10 in 1974. Being located deep inside the potential well of the Sun, Mercury is an expensive target for orbiters, but it is widely recognized that science at Mercury is of great relevance to our understanding of the solar system history. A preliminary study of new, low cost, missions to the planet is presented. Significant opportunities are found, for the first decade of the next century, to put a spacecraft into an orbit in the 2:3 resonance with the one of Mercury, thus allowing complete coverage of its surface for remote sensing investigations. Although the cruise phases are not optimized, it is shown that the possibility of such a mission is within the reach of ESA.


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    Title :

    Feasibility Study of Low-Cost Missions to Mercury


    Contributors:

    Publication date :

    1991


    Size :

    5 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English