So, today at 8:34 am UTC Messenger has reaches Venus and it’s doing its first Venus flyby. Can’t wait for the first pictures to arrive.

The mission timeline shows that this flyby is scheduled at about 3000 km, but the second fly by (which is only due in July 2007) will be much much lower, reaching about 300km.

Long time till it reaches Mercury orbit (2011) but way to go, Messenger! 🙂