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MESSENGER

The MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) mission was launched in August 2004 on a long journey to Mercury. The spacecraft completed one flyby of Earth, two of Venus, and three of Mercury before entering Mercury's orbit in March 2011. The mission ended on April 30, 2015, in a planned impact on the surface of Mercury when the spacecraft ran out of fuel.

May 6, 2016. MESSENGER Release 15

This release includes revisions to previously released calibrated and advanced products, and new advanced products covering the time period through the end of orbital operations on April 30, 2015. New products include additional Mercury maps and digital elevations models.

This is the final scheduled release of MESSENGER calibrated and advanced data products. This completes the planned MESSENGER archives for PDS.

Instruments and Archives

Instrument PDS Archives
EPPS (Energetic Particle and Plasma Spectrometer) EPPS Archive
(at the PPI Node)
GRS (Gamma Ray Spectrometer) and
NS (Neutron Spectrometer)		 GRS and NS Archives
MAG (Magnetometer) MAG Archive
(at the PPI Node)
MASCS (Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer) includes:
   UVVS (Ultraviolet/Visible Spectrometer)
   VIRS (Visible/Infrared Spectrograph)		 MASCS Archive
 
MDIS (Mercury Dual Imaging System) MDIS Archive
(at the Imaging Node)
MLA (Mercury Laser Altimeter) MLA Archive
Radio Science Radio Science Archive
XRS (X-Ray Spectrometer) XRS Archive
SPICE (Geometry and Navigation) SPICE Archive
at  the NAIF Node
All Ground Calibration Data

Online Tools

Mercury Orbital Data Explorer (ODE) - Provides search, display, and download  tools for selected MESSENGER data sets.
  Mercury Footprint Coverage Explorer - Part of the Mercury ODE, this page links to product coverage maps in Google Earth and other formats.
  MESSENGER QuickMap - This simple, interactive map interface used by the MESSENGER science team is now available to the public.

More Information

Release Schedule

The MESSENGER Project releases data at irregular intervals based on mission events.

Here is the release schedule through the remainder of the primary mission and the extended mission.

Release Data Acquisition Release to Public
15 Aug. 3, 2004 - ~Apr. 30, 2015
(Final delivery of advanced products; redelivery of previously delivered calibrated and advanced products with final SPICE and corrections)		 May 6, 2016
14 Aug. 3, 2004 - ~Apr. 30, 2015
(End of extended mission 2 operations; final delivery of raw and calibrated products)		 Oct. 9, 2015
13 Aug. 3, 2004 - Sep. 17, 2014 Mar. 6, 2015
12 Aug. 3, 2004 - Mar. 17, 2014 Sep. 5, 2014
11 Aug. 3, 2004 - Sep. 17, 2013
 Mar. 7, 2014
10 Sep. 18, 2012 - Mar. 17, 2013
(End of extended mission 1)		 Sep. 6, 2013
9 Mar. 26, 2012 - Sep. 17, 2012
 Mar. 8, 2013
8 Sep. 18, 2011 - Mar. 25, 2012
(Mar. 17 is end of primary mission; Mar. 25 is end of second full solar day of science operations)		 Sep. 7, 2012
7 May 19, 2011 - Sep. 17, 2011
(Next 4 months of orbital operations)		 Mar. 8, 2012
6 Sep. 30, 2009 - May 18, 2011
(Mercury orbit insertion + 2 months)		 Sep. 8, 2011
5 Oct. 21, 2008 - Sep. 29, 2009
(Third Mercury flyby)		 Mar. 15, 2010
4 Jan. 15, 2008 - Oct. 20, 2008
(Second Mercury flyby)		 Apr. 15, 2009
3 Jun. 6, 2007 - Jan. 14, 2008
(First Mercury flyby)		 Jul. 15, 2008
2 Aug. 3, 2004 - Jun. 5, 2007
(Earth and Venus flybys)		 Dec. 15, 2007
1 N/A
(Ground calibration data)		 Not online due to
low demand;
available on request

 

 What's New

August 17, 2016. An error was discovered in the photometric normalization section of the MASCS calibration pipeline.

May 6, 2015. MESSENGER Release 15 includes revised calibrated data products, and revised and new advanced data products, covering the entire mission.

Oct. 9, 2015. MESSENGER Release 14 includes raw and calibrated data through the end of orbital operations on April 30, 2015.

May 8, 2015. Rev. C of the MESSENGER Data Management and Archive Plan has been posted.

March 6, 2015. MESSENGER Release 13 includes raw and calibrated data through September 17, 2014, and advanced data products through March 17, 2014.

Sept. 29, 2014. New SHADR and SHBDR Radio Science products have been released.

Sept. 5, 2014. MESSENGER Release 12 includes raw and calibrated data through March 17, 2014.

April 14, 2014. Corrections to XRS CDR products have been posted.

March 27, 2014. An error has been corrected in the Radio Science SHADR model. 

March 7, 2014. MESSENGER Release 11 includes raw and calibrated data through September 17, 2013, and advanced data products through March 17, 2013.

Sept. 6, 2013. MESSENGER Release 10 includes raw and calibrated data acquired from September 18, 2012, through March 17, 2013.

August 23, 2013. MASCS CDR and DDR Reader software is available.

March 8, 2013. Release 9 data are online. Raw and calibrated data go through September 17, 2012, and derived data for most instruments through March 25, 2012.

Sept. 7, 2012. Release 8 data are now online, covering the first 12 months of orbital operations (through March 25, 2012).

March 8, 2012. Release 7 data are now online, covering the first six months of orbital operations (through September 17, 2011).

Sept. 8, 2011. Release 6 data are now online, covering the period after the third flyby through the first two months of orbit around Mercury (October 15, 2009, through May 17, 2011).

April 27, 2010. MESSENGER MASCS CDR data is now online.

March 15, 2010. Release 5 data are now online, covering the period through the third Mercury flyby (October 14, 2009).

October 26, 2009. MESSENGER Ground Calibration saved data have been put online.

April 15, 2008. Release 4 data are now online, covering the period through the second Mercury flyby (October 20, 2008).

July 13, 2008. Release 3 data are now online, covering the period after the second Venus flyby through the first Mercury flyby (January 14, 2008).

December 15, 2007. Release 2 (first science data release) is now online.

 
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Curator: Susan Slavney
NASA Official: Raymond E. Arvidson
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