| Mercury-P | |||||
| Mission Type: | Mercury exploration | ||||
| Operator: | Roscosmos | ||||
| Landing Mass: | [1] | ||||
| Launch Date: | 2030s [2] [3] | ||||
| Launch Rocket: | Soyuz-2 | ||||
| Interplanetary: |
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Mercury-P (ru|Меркурий-П) is a mission concept for an orbiter and lander by the Russian Federal Space Agency to study the planet Mercury.[4] The initial study suggested a launch in 2024, [4] but because of the crash of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, the implementation period was postponed to the 2030s.[4] The letter P in Mercury-P, stands for the Russian word 'posadka', meaning landing.[4]
Mercury-P would be the first soft lander on Mercury. A proposed flight scenario for the mission included a flyby of Venus, the insertion of the spacecraft into the orbit around Mercury and the delivery of a lander on its surface. The Institute of Space Research studied the possibility of "recycling" hardware developed for the Phobos-Grunt, Mars-NET, Mars-96, and Solar Sail spacecraft, with proposed upgrades of the hardware.[4], Russian scientists have conducted a preliminary concept study of the project, and compiled a list of the required scientific payload.[4] [2]