WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

On Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the mobile service tower delivers the first three Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) to the Boeing Delta II Heavy rocket for mating. In the foreground is the cooling water pond. The Delta II is the launch vehicle for the Aug. 2 launch of the MESSENGER spacecraft to the planet Mercury. The spacecraft is expected to reach orbit around Mercury in March 2011. MESSENGER was built for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.