messenger arrives while mercury at maximum enlongation

Sighting Mercury earlier this week, while it was at maximum
elongation from the sun, it occured to me that the arrival
of Messenger at the same time, would not have been coincidence,
but so that the antennas on earth receiving data from the
spacecraft would receive the minimum sun noise.

Anyone know if this is true, or it was coincidence?

There are two maxima;

o when mercury is approaching earth,
in which case it dives back into the sun in about 2 weeks.
You would use this maxima if you needed a longer time at
approach to mercury, say for course correction.

o when mercury is receding from earth, when mercury takes
about 4 weeks to dive back into the sun. You would pick
this maxima if you needed time after mercury, say to
download photos.

Did NASA deliberately pick the maximum elongation
because one was better suited than the other,
or was the amount of time needed so small that
either maximum was OK?

I see from my skygazer's almanac, that the maximum
occured when mercury was approaching earth. So either
NASA needed more time pre-mercury, or little time.

Anyone have any ideas as to what was really going on?

Thanks Joe

--
Joseph Mack NA3T EME(B,D), FM05lw North Carolina
jmack (at) wm7d (dot) net - azimuthal equidistant map
generator at http://www.wm7d.net/azproj.shtml
Homepage http://www.austintek.com/ It's GNU/Linux!
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