Messenger: Flight Software Design for a Deep Space Mission

Abstract

MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) is a NASA Discovery mission to study the planet Mercury. Launched in August 2004, it will perform one more flyby of Venus and three flybys of Mercury, followed by Mercury orbit insertion in 2011 for a one-year science-gathering mission. Throughout the mission, MESSENGER will use seven instruments to collect data about key characteristics of the planet to understand Mercury and the formation of the inner solar system.