These objects provide functionality for manipulating data from the MESSENGER Mission to Mercury. MESSENGER launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on August 3, 2004. It will fly past Venus twice, in October 2006 and June 2007. Three Mercury flybys, each followed about two months later by a course correction maneuver, put MESSENGER in position to enter Mercury orbit in March 2011. During the flybys MESSENGER will map nearly the entire planet in color, image most of the areas unseen by Mariner 10, and measure the composition of the surface, atmosphere and magnetosphere. It will be the first new data from Mercury in more than 30 years.

Mission site: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/