NASA TV To Cover MESSENGER Spacecraft Entering Mercury's Orbit

WASHINGTON -- NASA Television and the agency's website will carry live coverage from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT Thursday as the first spacecraft enters Mercury's orbit. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which operates the MESSENGER spacecraft, is conducting the webcast from its mission control building in Laurel, Md.

NASA's MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging, or MESSENGER, is scheduled to enter the planet's orbit at approximately 9 p.m. after conducting more than a dozen laps through the inner solar system for the past 6.6 years.