University of Colorado researchers will scan Venus during a spacecraft flyby this week using an $8.7 million instrument they designed and built for NASA's MESSENGER Mission, launched in 2004 and speeding toward Mercury.
Built by CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, the instrument will make measurements of the thick clouds and shrouded surface of Venus during the June 5th flyby, said LASP Senior Research Associate William McClintock, a mission co-investigator who led the CU-Boulder instrument development team.
An artists rendition of NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which will make its first flyby of Mercury in 2008.