Mercury Scout Mission Concept with Solar Sail Propulsion

Image of Mercury obtained by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft in 2008. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State University/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

The planet Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and the most difficult for spacecraft to visit and explore. This is because as the spacecraft approaches Mercury, the Sun’s gravity pulls on the spacecraft, greatly increasing its speed and making it difficult to decelerate without a lot of fuel. But what if a spacecraft … Read more