KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - This view looks upward inside the mobile service tower on Launch Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as the MESSENGER spacecraft is lowered toward the Boeing Delta II Heavy rocket for mating. Liftoff is scheduled for Aug. 2. The spacecraft is expected to reach orbit around the planet 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 21, 2004