MESSENGER's Farewell

[PortalHunter]

The MESSENGER mission ended on April 30, 2015, 19:26 GMT, due to loss of propellant and subsequent orbital decay beginning in late 2014. The spacecraft attained an estimated speed of 14 080 km/h as it crashed onto the surface of Mercury, probably creating a crater around 16 m wide on a side of Mercury not visible to telescopic observation . Its crash was confirmed by NASA when the spacecraft failed to show itself at the time when it should have completed an orbit. The loss of signal from MESSENGER following this period of time confirmed the crash.

MESSENGER captured more than 250 000 messages during its four-year mission.


MESSENGER's first to last images. (2011-3-29 to 2015-4-30)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MESSENGER#End_of_mission

http://www.space.com/29281-messenger-spa...crash.html

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/...cury-crash

https://www.facebook.com/NASA/photos/a.6...72/?type=1