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.

Related Links:

•  CBS News/Spaceflight Now article
•  Reuters article
•  Los Angeles Times article
•  The Guardian article
•  NASA/KSC press release