NASA’s MESSENGER Spacecraft Launches This Morning
By Staff Writer | August 3, 2004
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s [NASA]MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft was launched aboard a Boeing [BA] Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 2:15:56 a.m. EDT today. The MESSENGER’s mission is to gather data about the planet Mercury. It will do three flybys of the planet before entering its orbit in 2011 to gather more data over the course of one Earth year.