NASA Planetary Data System MESSENGER Release 8

The Planetary Data System is pleased to announce Release 8 of data collected by the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission.  After a 6.6-year cruise phase, during which the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury three times, MESSENGER entered orbit about the innermost planet on 18 March 2011, becoming the first spacecraft ever to do so. The primary orbital phase lasted one Earth-year, and the spacecraft is now in an extended year of orbital operations.

This delivery extends the formatted raw and calibrated data available at the PDS for all seven MESSENGER science instruments and the radio science investigation from 17 September 2011 to 25 March 2012. SPICE data from launch through the period of this release are also included.   With this release, data are now available to the public for the second full Mercury solar day of MESSENGER orbital operations.

All data sets in this MESSENGER release can be accessed from: http://pds.nasa.gov/subscription_service/SS-20120907.html

PDS archive: http://pds.nasa.gov

The ACT-REACT QuickMap interactive Web interface to MESSENGER data: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu  http://www.nasa.gov/messenger

The MDIS mosaics can be downloaded from: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/mosaics.html