MESSENGER... Getting into the Swing
Hello All
Today MESSENGER successfully made its first swing by Mercury.
Mercury is as alien a world to us as any we really only know a large
amount about our planet and our red neighbor, Mars. We probably know
more about the Jovian planets than Mercury. As close as it is to the
sun it’s an incredibly hard study.
This maneuver is part of slowing-down to do long term studies of the
planet. It’s also our first look at the planet in over three decades.
Believe it or not even a brief flyby like this will yield some
important scientific data. It’s going to take a lot more fly-bys and
several years to compete the mission and the study, this is one more
step along the way… a big one, though!
I’m proud that Wind River was able to help empower the MESSENGER team to achieve this goal and I hope they don’t mind us helping spread the word…