Mission type Planetary Rocket Soyuz-2 | Launch date Circa 2031 | |
Operator Russian Federal Space Agency | ||
The Mercury-P (Russian: Меркурий-П) is a proposed Russian space probe to Mercury. Mercury-P, where "P" apparently stood for the Russian word posadka ("landing"). The initial study was planned to 2019, but because of crash of the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, the implementation period was later significantly postponed to 2031.
Mercury-P should be the first 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.
References
Mercury-P Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA