Missions to Mercury

Abstract

Mercury is a poorly known planet. It is difficult to observe from Earth and to explore with spacecraft, due to its proximity to the Sun. Only the NASA probe Mariner 10 caught a few glimpses of Mercury during three flybys, more than 27 years ago. Still, this planet is an interesting and important object because it belongs, like our own Earth, to the family of the terrestrial planets. After reviewing what we know about Mercury and recapitulating the major findings of Mariner 10, we present the two missions, Messenger and BepiColombo, which will perform the first systematic exploration of this forgotten planet in 2009 and 2014, respectively.