The MESSENGER trajectory database provides an informative and captivating means of depicting the planned trajectory and mission plan for NASA's MESSENGER Mercury Orbiter Discovery mission scheduled to launch in 2004. The database comprises state of the art in information retrieval techniques to effectively serve the MESSENGER development and operations team, educators, students, broadcast media, and the general public. In addition, database contains features to minimize site maintenance through automation and the creation of standard format files during development and post-launch operation. In this paper we discuss the design and implementation of the MESSENGER trajectory database. In particular, we discuss the architectural design and its integration with NAIF's SPICE toolkit using, XML and J2EE technologies.
['Joseph Gill', 'Legand L. Burge', 'Moses Garuba']
The design and implementation of the MESSENGER trajectory database