MESSENGER ready for launch
Posted: Sat, Jul 31, 2004, 2:17 PM ET (1817 GMT)
NASA's first mission to Mercury in three decades is on schedule to launch early Monday, agency officials said Friday. The Mercury Surface, Space, Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, spacecraft is scheduled to lift off atop a Delta 2 from Cape Canaveral at 2:16 am EDT (0616 GMT) Monday. During its six-and-a-half-year journey to Mercury, the spacecraft will perform one flyby of Earth and two of Venus, then make four passes by Mercury before settling into orbit in March of 2011. MESSENGER carries a suit of instruments, including a camera, spectrometers, magnetometers, and laser altimeters to study the planet in detail. The only time a spacecraft has visited Mercury is NASA's Mariner 10, which made three flybys of the planet in the mid-1970s.
NASA's first mission to Mercury in three decades is on schedule to launch early Monday, agency officials said Friday. The Mercury Surface, Space, Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging, or MESSENGER, spacecraft is scheduled to lift off atop a Delta 2 from Cape Canaveral at 2:16 am EDT (0616 GMT) Monday. During its six-and-a-half-year journey to Mercury, the spacecraft will perform one flyby of Earth and two of Venus, then make four passes by Mercury before settling into orbit in March of 2011. MESSENGER carries a suit of instruments, including a camera, spectrometers, magnetometers, and laser altimeters to study the planet in detail. The only time a spacecraft has visited Mercury is NASA's Mariner 10, which made three flybys of the planet in the mid-1970s.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
Space Force selects companies to develop space-based interceptor prototypes
Posted: Sun, Nov 30 8:40 AM ET (1340 GMT) |
|
news links
|
|
Monday, December 1
Spaceport Cornwall shortlisted as testing location
BBC — 5:57 am ET (1057 GMT) 'We’d love to be in India': Elon Musk makes the case for Starlink’s rural connectivity mission
Business Today — 5:57 am ET (1057 GMT) Russia’s War Drones Still Using Starlink Despite Pentagon Crackdown
United24 Media — 5:56 am ET (1056 GMT) On Space Command: Springs focuses on the mission, not politics
Colorado Springs Gazette — 5:54 am ET (1054 GMT) China's first space documentary screened in Bulgaria
Xinhua — 5:52 am ET (1052 GMT) |
