Mercury Exploration
Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, it is hard to directly observe from Earth except during dawn or twilight when the Sun’s brightness doesn’t outshine little Mercury. The first spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA’s Mariner 10, which launched in 1973. NASA’s MESSENGER launched in 2004. The European Space Agency and JAXA launched a joint mission to Mercury in 2018.
Planet Location
Inner Solar System
first mission
Mariner 10
total missions
3
active missions
1 (ESA’s BepiColombo)
This high-resolution mosaic of images shows Mercury as it appeared to MESSENGER as the spacecraft departed the planet following the mission’s first flyby of Mercury.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Missions to Mercury
Three spacecraft have explored Mercury.
