NASA: Messenger craft ready to enter Mercury's orbit

A NASA spacecraft will soon enter the orbit of the planet Mercury, the agency said Thursday.
 
The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging — or Messenger — spacecraft will become the first robotic spacecraft to enter the orbit of Mercury after years near the center of the solar system.
 
NASA plans to insert Messenger into Mercury's orbit at 12:45 a.m. The process is estimated to take about 15 minutes. The spacecraft will then orbit the planet about every 12 hours.

NASA hailed the insertion as a breakthrough.
 
"This is a milestone event for our small, but highly experienced, operations team, marking the end of six and one half years of successfully shepherding the spacecraft through six planetary flybys, five major propulsive maneuvers, and sixteen trajectory-correction maneuvers, all while simultaneously preparing for orbit injection and primary mission operations," Messenger Systems Engineer Eric Finnegan said in a statement.
 
"Whatever the future holds, this team of highly dedicated engineers has done a phenomenal job methodically generating, testing, and verifying commands to the spacecraft, getting Messenger where it is today," Finnegan said.