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Messenger Spacecraft Prepared for Mercury

Posted by michael on from the spf-5000 dept.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA's first orbiter to the planet Mercury is shown today in cut-away, revealing the parasol design that will protect it from intense heat. Twenty layers of aluminized Kapton will be its sunshade. Curiously since the innermost planet is so close to the Sun, the Mercury mission itself will look for (cometary) water-ice preserved on the less baked north pole."

8 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Ion drive by Geoffd1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At first glance, I thought they were using an ion drive, or something - classic design for such a thing is to have a giant "sail" at the back, powered by the "wind" generated by an ion drive... slow at first, then gets very fast.

  2. Bottom of the (gravity) well by maggard · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Curiously since the innermost planet is so close to the Sun, the Mercury mission itself will look for (cometary) water-ice preserved on the less baked north pole.
    Curiously? One of the best places to look for anything is at or near the bottom of a well (gravity well in this case.)

    Sure there are lotsa other places to look too but this is a tidally-locked object not far from where many inner-system comets end up, ie the Sun. It'd be curiouser if Mercury hadn't intercepted a few comets over the eons and there weren't some traces of those collisions left on the benign parts of the planet.

    --
    I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
  3. Send a rover! by qualico · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They should send a rover on over.

    Mercury must have some interesting elements collected from solar winds.

    A good landing site would be on the dark side obviously to avoid overheating.
    However, if I remember correctly, Mercury also sports the coldest temps in the solar system due to its rapid evaporation.
    Kind of like the cooling effect one gets when a wind blows on wet skin.
    But I somehow doubt those rumors with it being so close to the sun.

    So how about playing on the transitional areas of light and dark areas.
    This planet was thought to be like our moon in that the same face points towards the Sun, leaving a perpetual dark and light side. However, it was shown to have a strange rotation of three rotations every two of its years.

    What I would like to see from a rover is a video showing the sunsets and sunrises.

    Its suppose to be really bizarre.
    The sun rises and picks up speed as it grows in size! Then it pauses at the top and reverses the process.

    If they did find ice water on the planet, do you think huddling some poor humans in a crater there would be beneficial or sacrificial?

    Just some musings.

    1. Re:Send a rover! by VanillaCoke420 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      True, I wasn't aware that Mercury did not face the same side to the sun at all times... Anyway, the landing is a bit more difficult, but it could be done of course. A rover would be nice... but the lander was scrapped because of budget restrictions. If they get more funding quickly, they might be able to throw in one, but it wont happen. I do agree though that a core sample return would be very valuable.

  4. Metalized Kapton Film by StateOfTheUnion · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I figured that Kapton had to be some new fangled high tech insulating product but . . .

    Kapton is a polyamide film duPont product that's been around for some 30 years . . .

    I wonder if its the same metalized film used in some automobile window heat shields (or might that be metalized biaxially oriented nylon film)?

    1. Re:Metalized Kapton Film by wass · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I've been using Kapton tape for years in electronics in the lab. It's a great insulator, and coming on a roll of tape with adhesive it's really easy to use.

      And recently I've been using it in my cryogenic experiments. In the dilution fridge in my lab we can get to temperatures as low as 20 mK. Kapton tape is stable at these low temps, and provides a good way to ensure insulation between two conductors while still being 'removable'.

      --

      make world, not war

  5. Better yet, don't send anything... by Simonetta · · Score: 0, Interesting

    This is another example of a space exploration project that should be shelved until the problems on Earth are dealt with.
    A mission to Mercury can wait two or three hundred years. Mercury isn't going anywhere and there isn't anything that we could learn from the massive expenditure for such a project that will be of any direct and servicable use to us for another 200 years.
    For NASA to request funds for projects like this only confirms the growing public perception that the entire space program is nothing more than a big welfare handout for scientists and engineers who forgot to study anything useful in grad school.

  6. Re:Is that even possible? by jerde · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Conduction and convection are not going to work in a vacuum, but radiation works just fine. This is electromagnetic radiation, like light and radio waves, so it does not need a medium

    Which is why vacuum flasks also use silvered glass, to help reflect the infrared radiation back into your hot soup. :)

    - Peter

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    INsigNIFICANT