KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - On Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Boeing Delta II Heavy rocket waits for the arrival of the mobile service tower behind it. In the foreground is the cooling water pond. The tower holds three out of nine Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) that will be mated to the Boeing Delta II for the Aug. 2 launch of the MESSENGER spacecraft to the planet Mercury. The spacecraft is expected to reach orbit around Mercury in March 2011. MESSENGER was built for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
Location Kennedy Space Center, FL
Date July 1, 2004