The Long Way to Mercury

With so much stuff going on in space, Top Men were afraid you might miss the MESSENGER spacecraft close swingby of Earth tomorrow (Aug 2). On it's way to an orbit around Mercury in 2011, MESSENGER is swinging by Earth (1,458 miles) for a gravity assisted trajectory correction.

MESSENGER was launched almost exactly one year ago, and after this correction it heads off to Venus for two more corrections and then off to Mercury. Using the gravity of the planets lets the craft carry much less fuel.

Detailed mission designs are here.