Talk:MESSENGER/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about MESSENGER. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Previous discussions without headers

Why is there a 12 second window for 12 days starting August 2, 2004 for the launch of MESSENGER? What determines this 12 second window? - Vohiyaar

What was the reason for the delay from May to August? Rmhermen 03:01, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)

2005 - 1975 = 30, not "more than 35" Lee M 19:34, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

But the orbital insertion won't be until March 18, 2011, which will be over 35 years. Richard W.M. Jones 19:26, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes but it was a flyby so you should compare to the first flyby by MESSENGER in 2008...82.120.124.201 6 July 2005 04:04 (UTC)

I changed it from 35 to 30, which is correct. The upcoming flyby on 14th of January will be closer than any encounter done by Mariner 10 [1] (200 km for MESSENGER vs 327 km at closest for Mariner 10) --Harald Khan Ճ 15:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Discovery Rupes

Rather beautiful and informative photograph on Discovery Rupes here: [2] Richard W.M. Jones 06:53, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

End of mission

Is there any plan to lanch the probe to crash in the surface after its mission is complete? Just like the Galileo in Jupiter. That is, the prove could even take pictures from the surface and mesure the temperature and the atmosfere from close while it crashes in the surface. -Pedro 14:12, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, Mercury doesn't have much of an atmosphere, but other than that, I'd guess they haven't worked out what to do that far in advance.

—wwoods 06:42, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Quote from [3]: "After eight years in space, the MESSENGER mission will end when the satellite crashes into the planet's surface." Althoug this might change, but it looks like that is the current plan. Awolf002 12:54, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a nice idea if we can get some info and pictures while it crashes.

--Pedro 23:55, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Rather difficult to do anything while it's crashing. Anything done at the end of the mission will depend on how the spacecraft is doing structurally, and if things like the camera are even working by then. It is, after all, Mercury. :) --Planetary 17:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Mercury is like the moon, not like Venus... it shouldnt drop in a vertical crash but rather horizontal. There are no close-by pictures of Mercury, so it would make history. let's hope cameras will work, then. --Pedro 14:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Blank space

Someone please edit to compensate for the enormous blank space in the introduction. It appears the table (mostly with question marks as of current), is causing this. --Marsbound2024 21:18, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Done and done. --Planetary 17:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

MESSENGER results

First images in: see: Encounter Observation Phases

File:MESSENGERanimation.gif

Not sure about the copyright status of this image; it's made of MASA images, but it was assembled by Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society

Serendi^podous 22:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Statement

gravity field to degree and order 16 - what does that mean? --Abdull (talk) 10:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Gravity fields are modeled by spherical harmonic expansions. I've added a wikilink. mdf (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

About gravity wells

Just wanted to explain my edit: Yes, Mercury has a higher orbital velocity than does the Earth. However, a spacecraft falling from the Earth to Mercury's orbit would have a much higher velocity, still, because it falls toward the Sun. The flybys are to slow it down, not "speed it up" to Mercury's orbital speed.Fleem (talk) 12:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Something odd about the orbits

The figure shows the spacecraft making a first pass by Earth with virtually no change in orbit, then making a pass by Venus with a huge change in orbit. But the pass by Venus is at higher altitude under weaker gravity... 70.15.116.59 (talk) 14:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Look at the graphic more carefully. The first flyby of the Earth was a large change in orbit (see color change on the graphic): this put the probe onto the first Venus flyby. The first Venus flyby was minor, probably more for synchronization with Mercury (but I'm no specialist; there is in-article discussion about stuff related to this). The second Venus flyby was significant (again, see color change on graphic), and, with the help of DSM-2, put Mercury onto MESSENGER's crosshairs. It would be nice to find an animation. mdf (talk) 18:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

OK -- When I first looked at this I assumed the blue circle was the Earth's orbit, but I see now that's the faint dotted line. (With a certain literal-mindedness I was thinking the blue line couldn't be the probe because it runs straight into the ground...) The cyan line goes "right past" Earth but that's not a flyby and not listed on the chart which is why it doesn't change the orbit much. I see now that the lines even are color coded on the list of flybys, and since that's what I was about to suggest now I'm not sure what to say, except that maybe the dotted orbits could be a shade wider. Thanks for the clarification. 70.15.116.59 (talk) 03:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Something the article doesn't mention

What is (planned to) happen at the "nominal end of the spacecraft's primary mission"? Neıl ☎ 09:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

NASA allocates resources and/or goes back to Congress and begs for more money to conduct an "extended mission"[4]. mdf (talk) 14:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Why the change of the trajectory?

Why was the trajectory and launch window changed? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Dunno. My guess is a slipped schedule changed the launch date, changing the optimal path.Fleem (talk) 07:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

It is really obious when you learn everything about MESSENGER. The change is caused by a delay of the launch due to the thecnical error on the spacecraft. The reason of the error was because of the electrical systems failed to work. It was fixed and the launch was done 4 days after the malfunction was discovered. --122.105.119.133 (talk) 08:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Why do we have to have everything in space articles translated into feet, statute miles etc?

This is extremely irritating. As far as I know NASA, like all science bodies, uses SI units internally (except when it wants to crash space probes into distant heavenly bodies 'by accident'). Surely Wikipedia readers are also all familiar with SI measurements such that constant translation gives a spurious air of precision. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnBurton (talk • contribs) 22:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Americans (including me) have become comfortable with liters, somewhat comfortable with meters, but have absolutely no intuitive grasp of how far a kilometer is: more than a mile, less than a mile, in what ratio to a mile? Also it seems that miles are still in favor when discussing navigation. Brian wessels (talk) 21:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I still don't get it. Klick (for kilometer) came into usage in the US military in the 1950s - are you genuinely saying 'Americans ... have absolutely no intuitive grasp of how far a kilometer is'. I hate to think you're right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnBurton (talk • contribs) 03:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say they have no idea, but it's more comfortable to think in terms of miles than in kilometers as an American; and NASA is an American agency. -134.50.14.44 (talk) 16:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Is a kilometer 'more than a mile, less than a mile?" Give me a break. I am an american, and I say the problem lies with you personally. A scientific article should always use SI —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.91.173.42 (talk) 12:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

reference

Robert E. Gold, Sean C. Solomon, Ralph L. McNutt, Jr. a, Andrew G. Santo, James B. Abshire, Mario H. Acuña, Robert S. Afzal, Brian J. Anderson, G. Bruce Andrews, Peter D. Bedini, John Cain, Andrew F. Cheng, Larry G. Evans, William C. Feldman, Ronald B. Follas, George Gloeckler, f, John O. Goldsten, S. Edward Hawkins III, Noam R. Izenberg, Stephen E. Jaskulek, Eleanor A. Ketchum, Mark R. Lankton, David A. Lohr, Barry H. Mauk, William E. McClintock, Scott L. Murchie, Charles E. Schlemm II, David E. Smith, Richard D. Starr, Thomas H. Zurbuchen (2001). "The MESSENGER mission to Mercury: scientific payload". Planetary and Space Science. 49 (14–15): 1467–1479. doi:10.1016/S0032-0633(01)00086-1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Stone (talk • contribs) 17:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Dating system

User Nickshanks (operating under IP 195.137.85.17) has changed the format for the dates in this article from standard American (Month day, year) to British (day Month, year). I don't think this is appropriate since the article seemed pretty consistent in the American version and was dealing with a primarily American based mission. I have reverted the edits, but wanted to open a dialogue here in case there's something I'm missing. Matt Deres (talk) 02:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The dates all look fine to me, before and after your edits. But that's because I have set my preferences according to taste. After you have set yours, you can see WP:DATE for a tedious discussion on this subject. Maybe one day units of measurement will be included in the preferences too. mdf (talk) 02:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah we saw WP:DATE already:

Strong national ties to a topic: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should generally use the more common date format for that nation; articles related to Canada may use either format consistently. Articles related to other countries that commonly use one of the two acceptable guidelines above should use that format.

And as noted, this is an American spaceprobe. S B H arris 03:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Who can deny it? But perhaps I was misunderstood. If you select "my preferences" (near the upper right corner of the page), you'll find a "Date and Time" tab. There you can then select whichever date format you like to see. For example, I prefer the ISO stuff, and so all the dates, in all articles, look like "2008-01-17", even though this could be entered in articles as "[[January 17]], [[2008]]", "[[17 January]], [[2008]]" or even "[[2008-01-17]]".

Of course, if everyone already knows this and still wishes to fret about the YMD, MDY, DMY, etc, issue, that's ok too. All I ask is that the data be put in a form the wiki can convert. mdf (talk) 04:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, good point. What we should do is tell everybody who is changing stuff to any non-standard format to change it back, but so long as it's one acceptable format to another, we should just tell them to change their reader preferences. I'll do that now for mine. Oh, and BTW, perhaps the section on dates in WP:DATE should be changed to note that this is not like spelling, inasmuch as it' possible for everybody to see what they'd like (like the color of redlinks), so the only important thing is that a standard form be used. S B H arris 22:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

the "science case"

It would be helpful to have more information about the "science case" for the mission -- i.e., what particular scientific questions (other than "shrinking surface") the various mapping projects are meant to answer. What current theories about the planet, and planet formation and evolution in general, are the instruments designed to test? We have a huge amount on the engineering side, but not enough on this. 69.17.73.214 (talk) 05:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

There never is. However, as evidenced by the recent fly-by of Mercury we can tell the probe is designed to detect magnetic fields and analyze the atmosphere of the planet. --134.50.14.44 (talk) 16:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Water on Mercury

They said "large amount", but didn't say it's liquid. So...do we expect life on it? Lightblade (talk) 06:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm Having trouble!!! (partly urgent)

As you know, I am Empg98 and I am having trouble about posting an image from MESSENGER's Flyby 2 of mercury. I'm being helpful this time, and I just need some help to put in an image with a file the simular name of CW0131775256F.png. It would be a pleasure if you could help me.

P.S - I'm a fan of space and the solar system. --Ameoy25 (talk) 04:57, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Neither the image MESSENGER CW0131775156F.png or MESSENGER_CW0131775156F.png has been uploaded. You'll have to upload the image first, and then correct the image link in the article to match the name you uploaded the image under. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 14:34, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I am only 10 years old and stop filling my mind with all these things that boys don't understand! (Unless they have been taught these things) So I ask, How do you upload these images? --Ameoy25 (talk) 04:57, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

So??? --Ameoy25 (talk) 04:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I am still waiting for your response! Ugg.. If ArglebargleIV won't respond, could somebody else help me? --Ameoy25 (talk) 05:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I normally don't watch this page, so I didn't see your questions until you posted on my talk page. Take a look at this link that talks about how to upload images. then ask me questions. Alternatively, you could try the help desk. -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 15:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Scientific instruments

The table for MESSENGER#Scientific instruments is very cramped— recommend that Instrument name and Abr be moved to a spanned title row
The cropped images stuffed into a narrow column are not useful— recommend use of the full image, easily done if Instrument name and Abr are moved
Why do the objectives get a show/hide link only when editing? I see class="wikitable collapsible collapsed", but I don't think it is doing what is intended, nor is it needed
<center>...</center> should be replaced with {{center}}; the tag is deprecated and will not be supported by the planned upgrade to HTML5

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:35, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Point one actually seems like a good idea and has otherwise caused the cramped image, which could be expanded to fill the space as suggested in point 2. However, I am unsure why the show/hide control is not appearing in your browser. I've checked the table across all the most recent versions of five most popular browsers, as well as IE6, IE7 and the WebKit based browser on my phone, and don't experience this problem. However, it most certainly is needed to fit the intended objectives of the instruments on the page as some instruments have a very long list. Lastly, I was unaware that <center>...</center> would be unsupported in the upgrade. This will be fixed, but will take some time. --Xession (talk) 14:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Let me clarify the center issue. HTML5 will not support <center>...</center>,[5] but it is probable that most browsers will support it, but how and how well is problematic. MediaWiki will eventually move to HTML5— I don't have a timeline, but there is a move to try to fix what we can now.

I am running FireFox 3.6. Show/hide now works on a different PC, so I don't know what is going on there.

There are also a number of bare links, which are discouraged.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I am unsure what you are referring to in regards to 'bare links'. Can you clarify? --Xession (talk) 14:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Embedded citations. For example, PDS/MODE narrow-angle catalog. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The link you point to is not a citation, but rather a relevant external link to the data from that instrument. Would it still be neccessary to convert it to a citation instead? As for the 'More' links to the related NSSDC pages, this does seem applicable.--Xession (talk) 15:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

If it is being used to support the statements in the article, then it is a citation, otherwise it is an external link and needs to follow WP:EL. I opened the link above— It gets me into folders, but I am unsure where it leads to. What sort of content should I see?---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Finally found pertinent content like MDIS_CDR_RDRSIS.HTM. It would be better to link to documents link this rather than folders. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:50, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The links to the raw data are intended to direct interested people to the related data of those instruments. Nothing in WP:EL seems to discuss or discourage such a practice, as I think such items are usually only available for NASA and ESA missions, and no one seems to have included them before. I included them because it seemed very relavent to the mentioned instruments as official databases and also centralizes Wikipedia as an encyclopedic resource for people beyond a basic understanding of the article material. They are clearly labeled as directing a person to the data rather than further textual material. One could argue that the links are attempting to be an inclusive directory I suppose. Although, in this context and formatting, as well as the somewhat difficult nature in finding the links, I don't see this as an issue. --Xession (talk) 16:16, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Much more readable. Keep up the good work.

Initial launch speed a bit high?

"The complete burn sequence lasted 57 minutes bringing the spacecraft into a heliocentric orbit, with a final velocity of 640km/s"

That seems awfully fast, especially considering the Earth's orbital speed is roughly 30km/sec, Mercury's is ~48km/sec, and this other page lists the fast probe ever at 252,792 km/hr, or ~70km/sec: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28speed%29

This feels like a typo to me. What was the real speed? 64km/sec?

68.183.80.244 (talk) 07:55, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow yeah, nice catch. Not sure what in the World I was thinking to add that. It should be 10.68 km/s; just a smidge off. --Xession (talk) 08:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Or 640.8 km/minute ;-} CS Miller (talk) 07:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Ahhhhh ... that makes so much more sense now. Thanks, both 68.183.80.244 (talk) 20:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

MESSENGER is in-orbit. First ever around Mercury.

This article covers the mission with good depth. Spacecraft set to become first Mercury orbiter tonight. I suspect we will see many others in the next few days. N2e (talk) 05:58, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, but dated, as it's been in orbit for 5 hours. S B H arris 07:31, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The details of the missions won't likely change nor will the details of the orbit insertion which is what this article intends to discuss. However, I'd really recommend just reading the orbit insertion press kit for mission details. --Xession (talk) 07:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Mission duration

1)The article says the device is supposed to orbit Mercury and send back data for "12 Gregorian months." This might be better expressed as "12 Earth months," since "Gregorian month " is a rarely used term for the same thing, and less likely to be understood even by the scientifically literate reader, and conveys no extra precision of meaning."Gregorian month" only shows up 354 times at Google Book Search: [ while "Earth month" shows up 983 times: [ 2)What consumables are expected to limit the duration of the mission? The life of the storage battery? The lifetime of the bearings of gyros or rotary reaction control devices? Fuel for thrusters? Susceptibility of computer chips to radiation? We have seen the recent Mars rovers last many times the "design life", so some sourced info on expected limits on duration need to be found and added. Edison (talk) 14:15, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I chose 'Gregorian months' because I thought it sounded better but 'Earth months' would certainly be acceptable. As for mission lifetime constraints, I don't have any documents on that at this moment but I can tell you the solar cells are likely to be one of the lagest factors due to heating and freezing twice daily. Propellant is also likely to be a large factor; though, there should be enough propellant to last many years so long as the orit works as predicted. As for battery life and other instruments on the spacecraft, if the sunshade works as well as expeccted and no faults occur where the unprotected side is exposed to the sun for a long duation, they should in theory be able to well outlve the life of the craft.

Why not just say "month"? This is not a word like "day" or "year" which might (just possibly) have alternate meanings on another planet. Of course a "month" is an Earth month, so that's a redundancy (for a Mars month you'd have to pick your moon, ala Edgar Rice Burroughs, but on Mercury there isn't even that problem). The default for the word "month" is always an average calendar month (30.44 days) and since we use the Gregorian calendar, that's the same. There are siderial (27.3 days) and lunar/synodic (29.5) months , too, but for our purposes they are close enough to the Gregorian/tropical month (1/12th of a tropical year = 30.44 days) that it doesn't really matter. If we plan something for 12 months and it's tropical and not synodic, it will last 365.24 days instead of 354 days, and it's unlikely that somebody will complain that it lasted 6 days too long. The 3% difference in these things should always be within contingency planning for even things like fuel, let alone mechanical part lifetime. So, in short, just say "month." S B H arris 16:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Many readers would wonder "Earth month or Mercury month?" since they know different planets have different years and days. It is a leap of logic for them to realize that Mercury has no (known) moon. (Any reason it couldn't have some small one we just haven't seen yet?) "Earth month" would seem to clarify without being redundant, and it is common to state duration of missions of devices on mars in "Earth years" or "Earth days." Edison (talk) 16:56, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I think "12 Earth months" or "1 Earth year" would be clearer. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 17:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

RE: Edison, Mercury and Venus don't have moons probably because the tidal forces of the sun would make such orbits unstable over time. (Is this another limit to MESSENGER lifespan?) A mercury moon would be easy to spot during a transit, and also because the closeness of the sun would brightly illuminate anything. Mercury is far easier to observe then say, pluto. Algr (talk) 19:52, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the main limitations are fuel and money. There is enough fuel to support a 1 year extension. MESSENGER: Options for Extended Mission Proposal. LouScheffer (talk) 17:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

That is just for the one current, preliminary options suggested, which I will admit I have not read; though, for some reason it uses 150% more propellant than the primary mission. Other options will likely be explored in the next six months so we'll have to wait and see what happens. --Xession (talk) 20:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Article title

Propose moving this to Messenger (spacecraft). WP:MOS-TM dissuades use of caps unless the letters are pronounced individually. hbdragon88 (talk) 04:57, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Strong oppose: The name, 'MESSENGER' is an acronym and is cited in all caps in every credible source as such. The MOS does not overrule this matter. Secondly, MESSENGER is not a trademarked name and would not be applicable to apply WP:MOS-TM to this situation. --Xession (talk) 05:12, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
We also have, for example, NASA. Kaldari (talk) 05:28, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I was about to say. Hbdragon88 has misinterpreted the cited text. "Using all caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't stand for anything." This is an example of a situation in which such styling should be used despite a possible reason to the contrary, not an instruction to avoid using it otherwise. —David Levy 05:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I did. My apologies. *goes back to lurking around the 'pedia* hbdragon88 (talk) 07:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Would you infobox-slaves please just LOOK?

I have tried to insert a wee photo of Mercury (yes, it's a small little-known planet that we don't see much of) near the beginning of this article. I have been stymied by an editor who noted that I can find all kinds of photos of Mercury way deep in the article toward the end, so why do I want a duplicate one in the front? And now, another editor who worships at the alter of infoboxes, including the especially revolting and large infobox that hogs a page of righthand margin in THIS article. To avoid making this personal, can I see a show of hands of editors here who think that WP:MoS demands that infoboxes can be allowed to grow without limit, even if that means that the primary subject of an article can have no photo until page 2? And in fact has none until page 4? Are you-all going to put up with this? S B H arris 04:01, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. BatteryIncluded (talk) 04:53, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes +1, and Sbharris watch your civility issues.--Kintetsubuffalo

This turns out to be a problem with more than one spaceprobe articles, but more of them have it my way than yours (all photos from a mission with a camera are saved for the photo gallery). I think it's probably an issue that needs to be taken up with wikiproject spaceflight. S B H arris 17:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually I am the editor responsible for that layout, of which I've been honing to implement a standard format that is easy to reference for unmanned spacecraft articles. As for including any pictures above the infobox, it looks terrible and your inclusion was no exception. As for the content of the picture, it does not make sense in my opinion because the article is about a spacecraft and the accompanying mission rather than just Mercury. The focus should therefore remain on the spacecraft and mission without confusing a reader about the artcle they are about to read. Secondly, diagrams can be great for aiding in describing objects and difficult concepts. However, images with no scientific description, tend to be nice to look at, but of no serious benefit to people seeking to understand an article. --Xession (talk) 17:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

More input: 1) Concur with Kintetsubuffalo that Sbharris should be cautioned on civility. 2) Concur with Sbharris that some photo ought to be able to occur early in the article. 3) Concur with Xession that any photo ought to emphasize the spacecraft, the subject of this article, and not overemphasize Mercury by itself. 4) I observe that the current photo appears to meet both 2) and 3), so I am fine with that. And it is apparently inside the top of the infobox, so I think there seems to be a quite acceptable solution. Am I missing anything? N2e (talk) 06:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I still fail to see a need for a photo of Mercury in beginning of the article. First, there is a navigation box that points to areas of the article that do include photos if one wishes to skip the text. Second, there should be a visible purpose for a photo to reside in an article. Just placing a photo of Mercury at the beginning with no way of linking it to the material seems entirely pointless. Alternately, photos acquired during flybys and the primary mission are better places for the photos in my opinion because they have a clear context to the discussed material. Lastly, it seems unnecessary to speak in terms of printed pages when describing the length of the article before reaching the first picture, when the article is generally intended to be viewed on a computer. Again, pretty pictures are nice to look at but do nothing to drive the content of an article.--Xession (talk) 06:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Other input: Concur that there should be a picture of Mercury *very* early in the article, probably on the initial screen's worth. Best would be a global (false) color picture of the whole planet, from the MESSENGER data, with a caption such as "One of the main results of MESSENGER was the first imaging of the entire surface of Mercury". If needed, to make room, we should delete flybys from the info-box. They are a means and not an end, and primarily of interest to specialists. I agree the article should discuss them in detail, but space near the top is precious, and main scientific result (imaging) is more important for the casual reader. LouScheffer (talk) 14:18, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

My apologies for any incivility-- this tends to happen when people reverted without addressing their points. The rest of this message will make a case that these articles are about missions, not machines, and that LEDE/summaries should be summaries, not teasers.

I'm happy with the way the article looks now, with one MESSENGER photo of Mercury up front (a painting is good-- a photo is much better). It was never an issue of screwing things up by putting a photo OVER the infobox-- anywhere you can get it up front is fine. However, inside the infobox as the only photo is not good, as we need something that shows the craft also (two images in the infobox would do the job).

Basically, we face two basic issues, here, generic to most of these articles. The first is that our articles on spaceprobe MISSIONS have been NAMED as "spacecraft" articles (with that word in parenthesis anytime there a danger of mistake, such as Viking (spacecraft)). This tends to focus the article on the machine itself, which is wrong, since the article is really about the whole mission (including results), not the machine. Nor can the results be easily separated from the machine and folded into planetary articles, since data-sets are very source-specific. Finally, although we do have a few articles on programs of probes (like Ranger program), we can't count on such things for holding mission histories and results outside of data on the machines; often programs are very disjointed (i.e. the Pioneer program series of very different craft) or contain only two missions or even just one (like MESSENGER or Far Horizons).

Now, the fact that these articles are about programs, means that they need information on history of mission, the design and construction of the probe, the instruments, the flight-path, the dataset returned, and so on. It's easiest and most natural to put this in chronological order, which is the way it's done in this article. I'm fine with all of that. However, a WP article LEDE should be a summary, which means that mission RESULTS and OUTCOMES near the ends of article, should still have some place (as a part of the summary) up front, if they exist (like the photo from Mercury orbit, to be modified later-- and BTW this is "linked" to the article by its thumb-box caption!)

Wikipedia is not a crime novel, where results are a spoiler. It's more like a newspaper article, where some nutshell summary items go up front. An image for a probe that has a primary imaging purpose, should go representationally up front, along with an image of the craft. In fact, in complicated missions like surface rovers or a craft at the Earth-Sun L2 point, perhaps a third image of where the thing actually WENT, should to near the front, also.

All of this is for the uninformed reader, who does indeed like to see what has been deprecated as "pretty pictures" (but what most people find valuable visual illustration).

Who else are we writing for, if not the educated layperson who is completely uninformed about this particular mission? The idea that a navbox "points to" later photos assumes greater familiarity with wiki-architecture than most readers possess. We're not writing for wiki-wonks, either. Nor for other editors. We're writing for our intended primary audience. Ask yourself "who is that?" and you'll solve many format problems. S B H arris 17:24, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I take no issue with including typed information regarding the results of the mission in the summary. However, it is important to remember that few results are available at this time so this is not easy to provide. As such, the article is heavy on information regarding the spacecraft because that is what is readily available. There is certainly further information regarding the past flybys that can and should be included in the contextual sections, of which I have not yet included due to my own time constraints. Nonetheless, crowding information into the introduction/summary can cause information overload leading to some ignoring the introduction or becoming entirely distracted and looking only at the pictures; I've experienced this feeling myself, and been witness to it as well. I don't see this as being beneficial to readers. Therefore, I believe it is important to keep the introduction/summary as short and to the point as possible while maintaining many valuable points regarding the mission; a teacher once described such a concept as "place only what you could fit on a cracker; one or two bites and your done". Regardless to this matter, I still disagree strongly, that including an image of Mercury in the introduction/summary provides any benefit to readers and hold that it really only serves to pollute the textual space. The image is quite large, especially for the monitor I write this from at a resolution of 1024x768. I've been lambasted previous for including much smaller images, of the mission identifiers, in the introduction and I assure you that many would agree that an image of this size should not be placed at that point in the article. It creates an absolutely terrible look to the article when you cram the text into such a small area. Here is a screencap of the article on this monitor.--Xession (talk) 23:14, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly one way or another but here's my assessment: I agree with Xession in that 1) the article is about the spcecraft and its mission, not about Mercury imaging. 2) It is a standard style in wikipedia to include the infobox in the leade section and loose images/galeries go in section below. Moreover, this is the standard display for all spacecraft in Wikipedia, why would this one HAS to be any different? Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

PS: I see that the administrator Kaldari agrees with Xession too.

I think *every* planetary mission should start with a picture of the planet. There are two reasons, one philosophical, one practical. Philosophically, any article or essay should start with the motivation. The motivation in this case is the planet. Furthermore, the characteristics of the planet determine all aspects of the probe, so the planet comes first in all decisions, from the science objective to the construction and operation. That's why Venus and Titan probes are mainly radar, why rock planets get high-res imagers, why gas giant probes concentrate on the moons, etc. You cannot understand the probe without understanding the planet, and a picture is the best way to introduce the planet. Finally, what (most) people are interested in are the results, not the construction of the probe. I suspect many more folks care about Mariner 4 because it took the first pictures of Mars, not because of its construction, trajectory, or operation, though those are of great interest to experts. So philosophically, results should be right up front as soon as they are available. Practically, we need to get the maximum useful material on the first screen, since that's what every one sees first, and casual readers see only that. So blank space on the first screen is a huge waste. Now look at these three examples:

Screencap with picture of Mercury - aesthetics bad, but all the info you need is there
No picture, laptop display Big white space, would be better used for an image
No picture, medium size display Very big white space
Image on a big HDTV monitor is even worse - it's about 1/2 white

It's far, far better to add at least some results here than to leave it blank, and images are by far the most accessible results. LouScheffer (talk) 15:12, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I think *every* aircraft article should start with a picture of clouds. BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:21, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

For each aircraft that is carefully designed to inspect one particular kind of cloud, this makes perfect sense. LouScheffer (talk) 02:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. I too can do parody: I think that every article about a aerial mission to photograph cloud-types from above, should have a main picture of the airplane that was used to collect the data, then later, a picture of the camera. Then the pilot. Some artist-impressions of clouds. Actual cloud-type photos can go at the end, in the gallery. For those who want to see them, which hardly anybody will, 'cause airplanes are way cooler. S B H arris 02:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Sarcasm aside, it seems you are still viewing the article as if it were an isolated book, rather than a cross-referenced, wikified entry. Again, I don't disagree that images acquired by the mission are important; they are included in the article. However, what about missions that don't include a camera, such as Ulysses? How would you intend to show a public outreach photo in that circumstance for the introduction and summary? The data can be explained well in layman terms, but it is not content that should exist in the introduction. What about Voyager 2, where the spacecraft visited four planets; would you have four images in the summary? The same predicament exists for other spacecraft as well: Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Galileo, Cassini-Huygens, Stardust, New Horizons, Dawn. The list is certainly much longer but each would have introductions polluted with "necessary" galleries, that would also likely be redundant to the content below. Even the MESSENGER mission visited and acquired data fom more than one planet. As such, I think it is important to not include images in the introduction or summary, to maintain a consistent layout across the unmanned spacecraft articles. Assuming readers will be too lazy to scroll down the page to the results, or too ignorant to be aware of the navigation box, seems unfounded.

This seems backwards to me. I agree it's hard to illustrate the results of a particle-and-fields probe. But that seems no reason to leave out a picture when it would be helpful. I agree this might make them inconsistent, but what is the point of consistency (from the reader's perspective)? I can't even imagine a reader who complains, or is confused, because one article has a helpful picture, and another, where the picture is not so helpful, does not. I personally think the large white space (as seen on the images above) is a far bigger problem than a lack of consistency. I'd be very interested in other editor's opinions here as well.

As far as including a picture of each visited body, I think this is right for missions that visited them as part of their primary objective (Voyager, Dawn, etc.) but not for each body used for a flyby assist. (Even is some science was done because of the opportunity). If there are four, make each of them smaller - even on a small screen there is room for both pictures and the initial text, as your screenshot shows. After all, one of the most important facts about Voyager 2, for example, is that it visited four planets in a grand tour. So why not show the photos, which serves at least two purposes - it shows an example of the scientific results, and shows the motivation in easily readable form. In fact, you could make an argument for two images for each target body in the motivation - the best previous result, and the best result from the mission. This would provide a wonderful visual example for the motivation for the mission. LouScheffer (talk) 02:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

And BTW, as for imaging just fields, you should look at the official ESA site for GOCE (The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer) [6]. Humans are such visual creatures that the main scientific results for this gravitational gradient measuring satellite (that's all it does) have been turned into one giant false-colored world globe. The European Space Agency did that, not Wikipedia. No, I didn't send them a nasty letter-- they did it all by themselves. S B H arris 03:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

You have still yet to address why you assume readers will discount an article simply because they don't see a picture of data from the mission immediately in the beginning of the article. In my own experience on Wikipedia, my impressions are generally the opposite; if I see a picture in the introduction/summary section, and there is also an infobox, I am much less likely to read the article because I tend to assume it is as poorly written as laid out. If people come to read about the mission, they are likely to read the good deal of information available; if they come to see pictures acquired during the mission, they are likely to scroll through the page looking at the pictures. What is the issue with this? --Xession (talk) 03:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The issue is very simply that the main illustratable purpose of the mission is to get good photos of Mercury, and one does not bury the LEDE (that we're getting them, and here is an example) deep in the story. If you wrote a book about the MESSENGER mission, what would you put on the cover? Indeed, if you wrote a book on the Apollo program, what would you put on the cover? That article has it right. S B H arris 08:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, as with numerous books about unmanned spacecraft, I would likely choose an artist rendering, similar to that in the infobox, to place on the cover. Also, introductions in such books also tend to be photo free, and when photos are included, they tend to follow a similar pattern as I have laid in this article. Regardless, we are not here to write a book, but a single article that should be asthetically pleasing to the widest majority. Not everyone has a widescreen monitor, nor does everyone with a widescreen monitor read webpages in full width. There is a reason newspapers and text books use narrow columns in their publications; people tend to follow and absorb material much better in this manner.

As for the Apollo program articcle, you should note that it is rated as a B-Class article, and that being an article about a program rather than a particular mission, the purpose of content is different. For instance, Apollo 11, a GA-Class aticle, has no photos until much futher down the page. Were someone to correct the issue of text being sandwiched between photos with a few other minor adjustments, it would likely be a featured article.

Nonetheless, your reply still hasn't addressed why it would be better to have a photo in the introduction/summary versus having readers scroll through the page. One might argue that some "drive-by" readers, only willing to view the upper-most portion of an article on their sreen, may not otherwise see any of the science results as the article stands. However, I would first argue that some readers may come to the page to look at pictures and while "forced" to scroll down the page, they may become further interested in reading the article; secondly, the article should be written with the intent to inform those truly interested and to avoid catering to those merely interested in pictures (the Commons exists for that). A counter to this may be that having photos in the lede could sponsor further curiosity as well. However, as I've mentioned previously, my impression of an article is largely based on the first things I see and read; if the article has a poor structure or it is aesthetically unpleasing on my screen, I am more likely to assume it has poorly written content as well and may not read much of the article, and instead seek information elsewhere. One could then argue that the absence of a photo in the lede is aesthically unpleasing as well. I would then point to he fact that the vast majority of aticles, especially those rated as Featured Articles, do not include photos in the lede.

Again, I still feel the inclusion of a picture in the introduction/summary is entirely unnecessary, noncontextual, redundant, and potentially detrimental to the readership of the article. --Xession (talk) 14:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

April Fools Day

Never thought I'd read an April Fool's Joke on an encyclopedia from someone who'd actually get away with it. Strangely enough, the wording "signals sent by a messenger from Mercury" actually works. Anyone fool enough to believe it will know better when he clicks "messenger." Congratulations to whoever posted that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.118.65.241 (talk) 06:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm here for the same reason.. :-) 85.102.185.199 (talk) 11:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Pretty clever, like last year's George Washington the inventor :) Jasonxu98 (talk) 00:14, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Dicoveries

I wonder if it would be OK to merge the "Discoveries" section into the "Primary science" section. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Designed for thermal environment

The Scientific American article on MESSENGER highlighted the unusual design to cope with the intense solar radiation and reflection from the surface - heat sinks etc - but this article doesn't seem to mention it at all. Anyone care to add ? - Rod57 (talk) 03:38, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Mission extension after march 2013?

What are the updates? Is there a second mission extension? 80.171.126.175 (talk) 14:42, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

It's apparently not yet been decided (as of yesterday): [7],[8] --Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:11, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

(also the name of the Roman god it is named after)

i will WP:BEBOLD and delete this bolded section.

MESSENGER (an acronym of MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) (also the name of the Roman god it is named after) is a robotic NASA spacecraft orbiting the planet Mercury, the first spacecraft ever to do so.

it is maybe a leftover from an earlier edit pointing out the fact that Mercury's namesake was the messenger of the gods.

it doesn't make sense in the way it's worded, and it looks cluttered having 2 chunks of text in parentheses next to each other.

i'm trying to find something on nasa's site explicitly saying something about the naming of the program to maybe add a section to the article on the significance of the name MESSENGER. although i'm not much of a writer (as you can see), so i may not be bold enough to do that. ≈Sensorsweep (talk) 05:25, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Mission profile

Launch and trajectory

I think the current phrasing of this sentence may be a little confusing:

The complete burn sequence lasted 57 minutes bringing the spacecraft into a heliocentric orbit, with a final velocity of 10.68 km/s (6.64 miles/s) and sending the probe into a 7.9 billion-kilometer trajectory that took 6 years, 7 months and 16 days before its orbital insertion on March 18, 2011.

The supporting citation (the Launch Press Kit, August 2004) shows, on page 16, the velocity of the spacecraft at separation to be 38,443 km/h, which is indeed ~10.68 km/s as the Wiki entry states. But (if I follow the press kit diagram correctly, which I think I do), that velocity is measured with respect to Earth. It's possible that readers may interpret "10.68 km/s" coming immediately after a reference to heliocentric orbit, as implying that this is a heliocentric velocity. I think the article should specify that 10.68 km/s is measured with respect to the Earth. AvianB (talk) 11:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

MESSENGER = backronym?

MESSENGER is a backronym, right? ≈Sensorsweep (talk) 05:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Obviously. --JorisvS (talk) 09:21, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Writing of the name

I don't think the name Messenger should be both fully capitalized and italicized throughout the entire article. – Editør (talk) 13:55, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I checked the Manual of Style at WP:ITALICS- it seems that in certain cases, spacecraft names can be italicized. However, this primarily applies to individual crafts as part of a type/class (i.e. the space shuttle Discovery), similar to italicizing ship names. The general trend among other interplanetary probes is not to italicize, so I'm thinking you've probably got a good point. Cheers! Skyraider1 (talk) 01:05, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

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