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MESSENGER Launch 6
The tip of the Boeing Delta
II rocket with its MESSENGER spacecraft on top breaks through
the billows of smoke below as it lifts off on August 3, 2004,
at 2:15:56 a.m. EDT from Launch Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station. MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment,
GEochemistry, and Ranging) is on a seven-year journey to the
planet Mercury. The spacecraft will fly by Earth, Venus and Mercury
several times to burn off energy before making its final approach
to the inner planet on March 18, 2011. MESSENGER was built for
NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
in Laurel, Md.
Credit: National Aeronautics
and Space Administration or NASA
