By Xinhua
Beijing : NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft on Monday flew within 200 kilometers above the surface of Mercury, making the first pass of the planet since 1975, media reported.
The car-sized probe traveled at about 25,800 kilometers miles per hour as it passed over Mercury on a mission designed to resolve some of the mysteries about the solar system’s innermost planet, officials said.
“It went right according to script, so that was very comforting,” said MESSENGER principal investigator Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
In addition to Monday’s rendezvous, MESSENGER is scheduled to pass Mercury again this October and in September 2009, using the pull of the planet’s gravity to guide it into position to begin a planned yearlong orbit of the planet in March 2011.
MESSENGER, which stands for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, is expected to begin transmitting hundreds of photos back to Earth Tuesday.