'Messenger' craft successfully launched into Mercury orbit

NASA successfully placed a spacecraft into the orbit of the planet Mercury, the space agency said Friday.

The Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging — or Messenger — spacecraft was put into orbit around the innermost planet of the solar system about three hours ahead of schedule.

Messenger had been scheduled to enter orbit about 12:45 a.m., but NASA said the insertion actually took place at 9:10 p.m. Thursday.  

The spacecraft was slowed down 1,929 miles per hour to join the orbit, which NASA said was 96 million miles from Earth.

NASA celebrated the successful maneuver.

“Despite its proximity to Earth, the planet Mercury has for decades been comparatively unexplored,” Messenger principal investigator Sean Solomon said in a statement.

“For the first time in history, a scientific observatory is in orbit about our solar system’s innermost planet. Mercury’s secrets, and the implications they hold for the formation and evolution of Earth-like planets, are about to be revealed."