The European Space Agency has started development of the BepiColombo mission to Mercury. The mission will combine two space probes, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) from Europe, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) from Japan. The intent is to provide the best understanding of Mercury to date, including a complete map of Mercury at different wavelengths. The missing is scheduled to launch August 2013.

Read More [esa.int]

In its first swing past Mercury, the MESSENGER space probe returned this picture of the planet nearest the Sun.  This is the first time this hemisphere of Mercury has been photographed.

GLAST is the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope. The Naval Research Laboratory in Washington will be doing its final round of testing (the third of three tests). GLAST will be used to study gamma-ray bursts.

Read More [spacedaily.com]

The MESSENGER space probe, launched by NASA in August 2004, will perform the first of three flybys of the planet Mercury on Monday. This will give us the first good look at Mercury in more than 30 years. Read More …