Messenger Mercury Probe Set for Liftoff

By David Kestenbaum

Published August 1, 2004 at 12:00 AM EDT

NASA prepares to launch a space probe Monday that will conduct an expedition to the planet Mercury. The Messenger craft -- the name stands for Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging -- is slated to arrive at Mercury in 2011.

The probe will be launched from Cape Canaveral, where it was recently placed atop a Boeing Delta II rocket.

NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

David Kestenbaum

David Kestenbaum is a correspondent for NPR, covering science, energy issues and, most recently, the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. David has been a science correspondent for NPR since 1999. He came to journalism the usual way — by getting a Ph.D. in physics first.

See stories by David Kestenbaum

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