Posted: Wed, Jun 6, 2007, 8:31 AM ET (1231 GMT)
NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew past Venus on Tuesday, a flyby that collected data about the cloud-enshrouded planet while putting the spacecraft on course to its final destination. MESSENGER made its closest approach to Venus at 7:08 pm EDT (2308 GMT) Tuesday, passing within about 320 kilometers of the planet's surface. The flyby changed the spacecraft's speed by about 24,000 km/h, and put the spacecraft on a trajectory to reach Mercury in January 2008. During the flyby the spacecraft collected images and other data about the planet; that data will be transmitted back to Earth starting Thursday. MESSENGER's observations were coordinated with a European spacecraft, Venus Express, in orbit around the planet. MESSENGER, launched in 2004, will make three flybys of Mercury in 2008 and 2009 before entering orbit around the innermost planet in 2011 for a year-long mission. The spacecraft will be only the second to visit Mercury, and the first since NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft made three flybys of the planet in the mid-1970s.
