Workers get ready to remove the lower panels from around the Delta II upper stage booster of the MESSENGER spacecraft.

In the mobile service tower at Launch Complex 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, workers get ready to remove the lower panels from around the Delta II upper stage booster of the MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft. The upper canister was removed first. Scheduled to launch Aug. 2, MESSENGER will return to Earth for a gravity boost in July 2005, then fly past Venus twice, in October 2006 and June 2007. It is expected to enter Mercury orbit in March 2011. MESSENGER was built for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. Processing is being done at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla.