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MESSENGER - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 | | Specifically, the scientific objectives of the mission are to characterize the chemical composition of Mercury's surface, the geologic history, the nature of the magnetic field, the size and state of the core, the volatile inventory at the poles, and the nature of Mercury's exosphere and magnetosphere over a nominal orbital mission of one Earth year. |
 | | MESSENGER performed a successful Earth swingby a year after launch, on 2 August 2005, with the closest approach at 19:13 UTC at an altitude of 2,347 km (1,458 statute miles) over central Mongolia. |
 | | The MESSENGER spacecraft, designed and built by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), is a squat box (1.27 m × 1.42 m × 1.85 m) with a semi-cylindrical thermal shade for protection from the Sun and two solar panel wings extending radially. |
| en.wikipedia.org /wiki/MESSENGER (1401 words) |
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