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On This Day In Space: Aug. 3, 2004: MESSENGER spacecraft launches to Mercury

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On This Day In Space: Aug. 3, 2004: MESSENGER spacecraft launches to Mercury_64cd0459b682f.jpeg

On Aug. 3, 2004, NASA launched the MESSENGER spacecraft on a historic first mission to orbit the planet Mercury. 

The spacecraft’s name stands for the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging mission. It blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:15 a.m. Eastern Time and spent the next six and a half years making its way to Mercury’s orbit. 

Related: Messenger: New Views of Mercury

This colorful view of Mercury was produced by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER’s primary mission. These colors are not what Mercury would look like to the human eye, but rather the colors enhance the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up Mercury’s surface. Image released Feb 18, 2013. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Related Stories:

— Messenger: New Views of Mercury

— The Most Enduring Mysteries of Mercury

— NASA’s Messenger Mission to Mercury (Infographic)

Because Mercury is so close to the Sun, a spacecraft traveling toward the planet speeds up as the sun’s gravity pulls it in.

In order to slow down enough to avoid falling into the sun, MESSENGER utilized the gravitational pull of Venus and Mercury with multiple flybys along the way. It made 15 trips around the sun before it finally arrived in Mercury’s orbit in 2011.

On This Day in Space Archive!

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