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With MESSENGER less than eight months from
launch, the mission’s engineering crews are working 20 hours
a day, seven days a week to meet a demanding schedule. This composite
image and a related time-lapse movie (7
MB version or 700
KB version) from July 18 show the nearly “round the
clock” activity from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. in the MESSENGER clean
room.
The team was especially busy over the past
week, integrating MESSENGER’s Power Distribution Unit (see
May 15 image); two Integrated
Electronics Modules (see June
26); small deep-space transponder; reaction wheel assemblies;
digital Sun sensors; two star-tracker cameras; radio frequency
switches/low-gain antennas; and two scientific instruments, the
Mercury Laser Altimeter (see July
9) and X-Ray Spectrometer. At the same time, the crews continue
to troubleshoot a range of daily technical issues that typically
come with assembling a spacecraft.
After completing initial prelaunch tests at
the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in October, MESSENGER
is scheduled to move to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., for more than two months of additional tests.
In January MESSENGER will leave Goddard for Kennedy Space Center,
Fla., in final preparation for its March 2004 launch aboard a
Boeing Delta II rocket.
Last updated: July 25,
2003
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