OrbitalHub

Wikipedia dixit:

“The stacked spacecraft will take seven years to position itself to enter Mercury orbit. During this time it will use solar-electric propulsion and nine gravity assists, flying past the Earth and Moon in April 2020, Venus in 2020 and 2021, and six Mercury flybys between 2021 and 2025.

The stacked spacecraft left Earth with an hyperbolic excess velocity of 3.475 km/s (2.159 mi/s). Initially the craft is placed in an orbit similar to that of the Earth. After both the spacecraft and the Earth completed one and a half orbits, it returns to Earth to perform a gravity-assist manoeuvre and is deflected towards Venus. Two consecutive Venus flybys reduce the perihelion nearly to Mercury distance with almost no need for thrust. A sequence of six Mercury flybys will lower the relative velocity to 1.76 km/s (1.09 mi/s). After the fourth Mercury flyby the craft will be in an orbit similar to that of Mercury and will remain in the general vicinity of Mercury. Four final thrust arcs reduce the relative velocity to the point where Mercury will “weakly” capture the spacecraft on 5 December 2025 into polar orbit. Only a small manoeuvre is needed to bring the craft into an orbit around Mercury with an apocentre of 178,000 km. The orbiters then separate and will adjust their orbits using chemical thrusters.”

Video Credit: ESA

ESA dixit:

“Rosetta launched in 2004 and travelled for ten years to its destination before deploying the lander Philae to the comet’s surface. Following the comet along its orbit around the Sun, Rosetta studied the comet’s surface changes, its dusty, gassy environment and its interaction with the solar wind. Even though scientific operations concluded in September 2016 with Rosetta’s own descent to the comet’s surface, analysis of the mission’s data will continue for decades.”

Video Credit: ESA

NASA dixit:

“NASA’s Dawn spacecraft turned science fiction into science fact by using ion propulsion to explore the two largest bodies in the main asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres. The mission will end this fall, when the spacecraft runs out of hydrazine, which keeps it oriented and in communication with Earth.”

Video Credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“Watch in 360 degrees as an United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida carrying NASA’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft. Roughly the size of a small car, the spacecraft lifted off at 3:31 a.m. EDT on August 12, 2018, starting its historic mission to “touch” the Sun.”

Video Credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“NASA’s Curiosity rover surveyed its surroundings on August 9, 2018, producing a 360-degree panorama of its current location on Mars’ Vera Rubin Ridge. The panorama includes skies darkened by a fading global dust storm and a view from the Mast Camera of the rover itself, revealing a thin layer of dust on Curiosity’s deck. In the foreground is the rover’s most recent drill target, named “Stoer” after a town in Scotland near where important discoveries about early life on Earth were made in lakebed sediments.”

Video Credit: NASA

NASA dixit:

“NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission launched in 2016 and now (August, 2018) is entering its approach phase. OSIRIS-REx will arrive at asteroid Bennu in December, 2018. OSIRIS-REx will help unveil the mysteries of our solar system’s formation.”

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Katrina Jackson