Europe and Japan's Joint Spacecraft Flies Past the First Rock from the Sun One Last Time Before Next Year's Orbit Insertion...

Top Three Images from BepiColombo's Sixth Mercury Flyby (News Release - January 9)

On 8 January 2025, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission flew past Mercury for the sixth time, successfully completing the final ‘gravity assist manoeuvre’ needed to steer it into orbit around the planet in late 2026. The spacecraft flew just a few hundred kilometres above the planet's north pole. Close-up images expose possibly icy craters whose floors are in permanent shadow, and the vast sunlit northern plains.

At 06:59 CET, BepiColombo flew just 295 kilometres above Mercury's surface on the planet's cold, dark night side. Around seven minutes later, it passed directly over Mercury's north pole before getting clear views of the planet's sunlit north.

European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher revealed the first image (above) during his Annual Press Briefing on 9 January. As during BepiColombo's previous flybys, the spacecraft's monitoring cameras (M-CAMs) did not disappoint.

This flyby also marks the last time that the mission's M-CAMs get up-close views of Mercury, as the spacecraft module they are attached to will separate from the mission's two orbiters – ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – before they enter orbit around Mercury in late 2026.

Peering into Mercury's Darkest Craters

After flying through Mercury's shadow, BepiColombo's monitoring camera 1 (M-CAM 1) got the first close views of Mercury's surface. Flying over the ‘terminator’ – the boundary between day and night – the spacecraft got a unique opportunity to peer directly down into the forever-shadowed craters at the planet's north pole.

The rims of craters Prokofiev, Kandinsky, Tolkien and Gordimer cast permanent shadows on their floors. This makes these unlit craters some of the coldest places in the Solar System, despite Mercury being the closest planet to the Sun!

Excitingly, there is existing evidence that these dark craters contain frozen water. Whether there is really water on Mercury is one of the key Mercury mysteries that BepiColombo will investigate once it is in orbit around the planet.

A Surface Shaped by Impacts and Lava

To the left of Mercury's north pole in M-CAM 1's view lie the vast volcanic plains known as Borealis Planitia. These are Mercury’s largest expanse of ‘smooth plains' and were formed by the widespread eruption of runny lava 3.7 billion years ago.

This lava flooded existing craters, such as the Henri and Lismer craters highlighted in the image above. The wrinkles in the surface were formed over billions of years following the solidification of the lava, probably in response to the planet contracting as its interior cooled down.



Another M-CAM 1 image, taken just five minutes after the first, shows that these plains extend over a large part of Mercury's surface. Prominently visible is the Mendelssohn crater, whose outer rim is barely visible above its flooded interior. Just a handful of smaller, more recent impact craters dent the smooth surface.

Further out, but still within the Borealis Planitia, the Rustaveli crater suffered a similar fate.

On the bottom left of the image lies the massive Caloris basin, Mercury's largest impact crater, which spans more than 1500 kilometres. The impact that created this basin scarred Mercury's surface up to thousands of kilometres away, as evidenced by the linear troughs radiating out from it.

Above a particularly large trough, a boomerang-shaped curve brightens the surface. This bright lava flow appears to connect to a deep trough below it. It appears similar in colour to both the lava on the floor of the Caloris basin and the lava of Borealis Planitia further north.

Yet another mystery that BepiColombo hopes to solve is which way this lava moved: into the Caloris basin, or out of it?



On Mercury, a Bright Surface is a Young Surface

While M-CAM's images might not always make it appear so, Mercury is a remarkably dark planet. At a first glance the cratered planet may resemble the Moon, but its cratered surface only reflects about two-thirds as much light.

On this dark planet, younger features on the surface tend to appear brighter. Scientists don't yet know what exactly Mercury is made of, but it is clear that material brought up from beneath the outer surface gradually becomes darker with age.

BepiColombo's third image selected from this flyby, taken by M-CAM 2, shows spectacular examples of the two things that bring bright material to the surface: volcanic activity and large impacts.

The bright patch near the planet's upper edge in this image is the Nathair Facula, the aftermath of the largest volcanic explosion on Mercury. At its centre is a volcanic vent of around 40 kilometres across that has been the site of at least three major eruptions. The explosive volcanic deposit is at least 300 kilometres in diameter.

And to the left lies the relatively young Fonteyn crater, which formed a ‘mere’ 300 million years ago. Its youth is apparent from the brightness of the impact debris that radiates out from it.

Throughout its mission, several BepiColombo instruments will measure the composition of both old and new parts of the planet's surface. This will teach us about what Mercury is made of, and how the planet formed.

Finishing in Style

"This is the first time that we performed two flyby campaigns back-to-back. This flyby happens a bit more than a month after the previous one," says Frank Budnik, BepiColombo Flight Dynamics Manager. “Based on our preliminary assessment, everything proceeded smoothly and flawlessly.”

“BepiColombo's main mission phase may only start two years from now, but all six of its flybys of Mercury have given us invaluable new information about the little-explored planet. In the next few weeks, the BepiColombo team will work hard to unravel as many of Mercury's mysteries with the data from this flyby as we can,” concludes Geraint Jones, BepiColombo's Project Scientist at ESA.

Source: European Space Agency

ABOVE: All images by ESA/BepiColombo/MTM

Europe and Japan's Joint Spacecraft Flies Past the First Rock from the Sun Once More...

BepiColombo's Best Images Yet Highlight Fourth Mercury Flyby (News Release)

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has successfully completed its fourth of six gravity assist flybys at Mercury, capturing images of two special impact craters as it uses the little planet’s gravity to steer itself on course to enter orbit around Mercury in November 2026.

The closest approach took place at 23:48 CEST (21:48 UTC) on 4 September 2024, with BepiColombo coming down to around 165 km above the planet’s surface. For the first time, the spacecraft had a clear view of Mercury’s south pole.

“The main aim of the flyby was to reduce BepiColombo’s speed relative to the Sun, so that the spacecraft has an orbital period around the Sun of 88 days, very close to the orbital period of Mercury,” says Frank Budnik, BepiColombo Flight Dynamics Manager.

“In this regard it was a huge success, and we are right where we wanted to be at this moment. But it also gave us the chance to take photos and carry out science measurements, from locations and perspectives that we will never reach once we are in orbit.”

Images from BepiColombo’s three monitoring cameras have arrived back on Earth, providing a unique view of Mercury’s surface from three different angles. BepiColombo approached Mercury from the ‘nightside’ of the planet, with Mercury’s cratered surface becoming increasingly lit up by the Sun as the spacecraft flew by.

M-CAM 2 provided the best views of the planet during this flyby, capturing more and more of the planet as BepiColombo came around to the side of Mercury lit by the Sun. M-CAM 3 also chipped in a stunning image of a newly-named impact crater.

M-CAMs 2 and 3 are now switched off, but M-CAM 1 will continue imaging Mercury until about midnight tonight (24 hours after closest approach), getting a beautiful view of the planet receding into the distance.

Mercury lays bare its Four Seasons

Four minutes after closest approach, a large ‘peak-ring basin’ came into BepiColombo’s view. These mysterious craters – created by powerful asteroid or comet impacts and measuring about 130–330 km across – are called peak-ring basins after the inner ring of peaks on an otherwise flattish floor.

This large crater is Vivaldi, after the famous Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741). It measures 210 km across, and because BepiColombo saw it so close to the sunrise line, its landscape is beautifully emphasised by shadow. There is a visible gap in the ring of peaks, where more recent lava flows have entered and flooded the crater.



First sight of crater newly named after New Zealand artist

Just a couple of minutes later, another special peak-ring basin came into view. This one measures 155 km across.

“When we were planning for this flyby, we saw that this crater would be visible and decided it would be worth naming due to its potential interest for BepiColombo scientists in the future,” explains David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the UK’s Open University and a member of the BepiColombo M-CAM imaging team.

Following a request from the M-CAM team, the ancient crater was recently assigned the name Stoddart by the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature after Margaret Olrog Stoddart (1865–1934), an artist from New Zealand known for her flower paintings.



“Mercury’s peak-ring basins are fascinating because many aspects of how they formed are currently still a mystery. The rings of peaks are presumed to have resulted from some kind of rebound process during the impact, but the depths from which they were uplifted are still unclear,” continues David.

Many of Mercury’s peak-ring basins have been flooded by volcanic lava flows long after the original impact. This has happened inside both Vivaldi and Stoddart. Inside Stoddart, the trace of a 16-km-wide crater that must have formed on the original floor is clearly visible through a covering of more recent lava flows.

Peak-ring basins are among the high-priority targets for study by BepiColombo once it gets into orbit around Mercury and is able to deploy its full suite of scientific instruments.

A taste of Mercury science

The snapshots seen during this flyby are among BepiColombo’s best so far – taken from the closest distance yet, with Mercury’s surface well-lit by the Sun. They reveal a surface with clear signs of 4.6 billion years of bombardment by asteroids and comets, hinting at the planet’s place in the wider Solar System evolution.



It’s worth remembering that these images are a bonus: the M-CAMs were not designed to photograph Mercury but the spacecraft itself, especially during the challenging period just after launch. They provide black-and-white 1024x1024 pixel snapshots. BepiColombo’s main science camera is shielded during the journey to Mercury, but it is expected to take much higher-resolution images after arrival in orbit.

In 2027, the main science phase of the mission will begin. The spacecraft’s suite of science instruments will reveal the invisible about the Solar System’s most mysterious planet, to better understand the origin and evolution of a planet close to its host star.

But the work has already begun, with most of the instruments switched on during this flyby, measuring the magnetic, plasma and particle environment around the spacecraft, from locations that will not be accessible when BepiColombo is actually in orbit around Mercury.

BepiColombo comprises of two science orbiters that will circle Mercury – ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter. The two are carried together to the mysterious planet by the Mercury Transfer Module. Even though the three parts are currently in ‘stacked’ cruise configuration, meaning many instruments cannot be fully operated, they can still get glimpses of science and enable instrument teams to check that their instruments are working well ahead of the main mission.

"BepiColombo is only the third space mission to visit Mercury, making it the least-explored planet in the inner Solar System, partly because it is so difficult to get to," says Jack Wright, ESA Research Fellow, Planetary Scientist, and M-CAM imaging team coordinator.

"It is a world of extremes and contradictions, so I dubbed it the ‘Problem Child of the Solar System’ in the past. The images and science data collected during the flybys offer a tantalising prelude to BepiColombo's orbital phase, where it will help to solve Mercury's outstanding mysteries."

Source: European Space Agency

ABOVE: All images by ESA/BepiColombo/MTM

A Joint European/Japanese Spacecraft Has Another Encounter with the First Rock from the Sun...

ESA / BepiColombo / MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO; Music composed by ILĀ

BepiColombo’s Third Mercury Flyby: The Movie (News Release - June 22)

Watch Mercury appear from the shadows as the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft sped by the planet’s night side during its 19 June 2023 close flyby, and enjoy a special flyover of geologically-rich terrain, along with a bonus 3D scene.

In the first part of the movie, composed of 217 images captured by BepiColombo’s monitoring camera M-CAM 3, the planet’s illuminated side quickly appears in the spacecraft’s field of view, showing off a bounty of geological features on its surface. The planet’s terminator – the divide between day and night – becomes more distinctive from afar, adding to the beauty of the image sequence.

At one point Mercury momentarily appears to hang between the spacecraft’s body and antenna before the spacecraft speeds away.

The image sequence starts from 19:46:25 UTC on 19 June 2023, at an altitude of 1,789 km above the planet’s surface, and ends at 20:34:25 UTC on 20 June 2023, when BepiColombo was 331,755 km away. The image cadence was roughly once per minute around closest approach, but much slower in the later phases.

Fly over Mercury’s Surface

The second part of the movie cuts to a flyover of a special region of interest featuring the 600 km-long curved escarpment known as Beagle Rupes, and the 218 km-wide Manley Crater, newly-named by the International Astronomical Union for the Jamaican artist Edna Manley. Beagle Rupes cuts through an elongated impact crater named Sveinsdóttir.

The flyover begins looking down vertically, with east towards the top of the frame. The viewpoint then swoops down and in to focus on Beagle Rupes and Sveinsdóttir Crater, then looping around so the viewpoint migrates from east to south.

It then tracks south to bring Manley Crater into the centre, with the straight scarp known as Challenger Rupes to its left, before rotating the view to bring north back to the top. At the end, the animated topography fades out and the projected image used for 3D reconstruction appears.

Regions like these will be important for BepiColombo’s main science mission, to learn more about Mercury’s geological history.

The scene has been reconstructed using the ‘shape from shading’ technique. More than 400 years ago, Galileo Galilei noticed that surface regions on Earth’s Moon that tilt away from the Sun appear darker, and those facing the Sun appear brighter.

The shape from shading algorithm builds on this fact. It takes the brightness of BepiColombo’s images of Mercury and infers the surface slope.

With the surface slope, topographic maps can be created. This particular flyover view is based on a coarser digital elevation model from NASA’s MESSENGER and the BepiColombo image.

Shape from shading uses the image to refine the initial topography, uncover small geologic features and predict more accurate slopes. The heights are not to scale.

Music and AI

Music was composed for the sequence by ILĀ, with the assistance of AI tools developed by the Machine Intelligence for Musical Audio (MIMA) group, University of Sheffield. Music from the previous two flyby movies composed by Maison Mercury Jones’ creative director ILĀ (formerly known as Anil Sebastian) and Ingmar Kamalagharan was given to the AI tool to suggest seeds for the new composition, which ILĀ then chose from to edit and weave together with other elements into the new piece.

The team at the University of Sheffield has developed an Artificial Musical Intelligence (AMI), a large-scale general-purpose deep neural network that can be personalised to individual musicians and use cases.

The project with the University of Sheffield is aimed at exploring the boundaries of the ethics of AI creativity, while also emphasising the essential contributions of the (human) composer.

A Bonus 3D Scene

Part of the region covered by the flyover sequence has also been reconstructed as a 3D anaglyph in the image below. Use red-green/blue glasses to best enjoy this view.

The image was taken from a distance of about 2,982 km, 17 minutes after closest approach, and covers an area roughly 1325.5 km x 642 km.

The topography at this site has also been reconstructed using the ‘shape from shading’ technique. The topography is used to generate anaglyphs that give a visual impression of the terrain.

The heights are scaled by a factor of 12.5 to optimize the visual experience in front of a computer or mobile screen.

Source: European Space Agency

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ESA / BepiColombo / MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO; processing: K. Wohlfarth and M. Tenthoff (TU Dortmund)

BepiColombo Makes the First Flyby of Its Future Home Planet...

BepiColombo’s first views of Mercury (News Release)

The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has captured its first views of its destination planet Mercury as it swooped past in a close gravity assist flyby last night.

The closest approach took place at 23:34 UTC on 1 October at an altitude of 199 km from the planet’s surface. Images from the spacecraft’s monitoring cameras, along with scientific data from a number of instruments, were collected during the encounter. The images were already downloaded over the course of Saturday morning, and a selection of first impressions are presented here.

“The flyby was flawless from the spacecraft point of view, and it’s incredible to finally see our target planet,” says Elsa Montagnon, Spacecraft Operations Manager for the mission.

The monitoring cameras provide black-and-white snapshots in 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution, and are positioned on the Mercury Transfer Module such that they also capture the spacecraft’s structural elements, including its antennas and the magnetometer boom.

Images were acquired from about five minutes after the time of close approach and up to four hours later. Because BepiColombo arrived on the planet’s nightside, conditions were not ideal to take images directly at the closest approach, thus the closest image was captured from a distance of about 1000 km.

“It was an incredible feeling seeing these almost-live pictures of Mercury,” says Valetina Galluzzi, co-investigator of BepiColombo’s SIMBIO-SYS imaging system that will be used once in Mercury orbit. “It really made me happy meeting the planet I have been studying since the very first years of my research career, and I am eager to work on new Mercury images in the future.”

“It was very exciting to see BepiColombo’s first images of Mercury, and to work out what we were seeing,” says David Rothery of the UK’s Open University who leads ESA’s Mercury Surface and Composition Working Group. “It has made me even more enthusiastic to study the top quality science data that we should get when we are in orbit around Mercury, because this is a planet that we really do not yet fully understand.”

Although the cratered surface looks rather like Earth’s Moon at first sight, Mercury has a much different history. Once its main science mission begins, BepiColombo’s two science orbiters – ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – will study all aspects of mysterious Mercury from its core to surface processes, magnetic field and exosphere, to better understand the origin and evolution of a planet close to its parent star. For example, it will map the surface of Mercury and analyse its composition to learn more about its formation. One theory is that it may have begun as a larger body that was then stripped of most of its rock by a giant impact. This left it with a relatively large iron core, where its magnetic field is generated, and only a thin rocky outer shell.

Mercury has no equivalent to the ancient bright lunar highlands: its surface is dark almost everywhere, and was formed by vast outpourings of lava billions of years ago. These lava flows bear the scars of craters formed by asteroids and comets crashing onto the surface at speeds of tens of kilometers per hour. The floors of some of the older and larger craters have been flooded by younger lava flows, and there are also more than a hundred sites where volcanic explosions have ruptured the surface from below.

BepiColombo will probe these themes to help us understand this mysterious planet more fully, building on the data collected by NASA’s Messenger mission. It will tackle questions such as: What are the volatile substances that turn violently into gas to power the volcanic explosions? How did Mercury retain these volatiles if most of its rock was stripped away? How long did volcanic activity persist? How quickly does Mercury’s magnetic field change?

“In addition to the images we obtained from the monitoring cameras we also operated several science instruments on the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter,” adds Johannes Benkhoff, ESA’s BepiColombo project scientist. “I’m really looking forward to seeing these results. It was a fantastic night shift with fabulous teamwork, and with many happy faces.”

BepiColombo’s main science mission will begin in early 2026. It is making use of nine planetary flybys in total: one at Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury, together with the spacecraft’s solar electric propulsion system, to help steer into Mercury orbit. Its next Mercury flyby will take place 23 June 2022.

Source: European Space Agency

ABOVE: All images by ESA/BepiColombo/MTM

Europe and Japan's Mercury-Bound Spacecraft Will Soon Fly Past a Pandemic-Ravaged Earth...

ESA / BepiColombo / MTM

ESA to Conduct BepiColombo Flyby Amid Coronavirus Crisis (Press Release)

Controllers at ESA’s mission control centre are preparing for a gravity-assist flyby of the European-Japanese Mercury explorer BepiColombo. The manoeuvre, which will see the mission adjust its trajectory by harnessing Earth’s gravitational pull as it swings past the planet, will be performed amid restrictions ESA has implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

BepiColombo, launched in October 2018, is currently orbiting the Sun at a similar distance as Earth. On 10 April, at about 06:25 am (CEST), the spacecraft will approach Earth at the distance of only 12,700 km, which is less than half the altitude of Europe’s Galileo navigational satellites. The manoeuvre will slow down the BepiColombo spacecraft and bend its trajectory towards the centre of the Solar System, thus tightening its orbit around the Sun.

“This is the last time we will see BepiColombo from Earth,” says Joe Zender, BepiColombo Deputy Project Scientist at ESA. “After that it will head deeper into the inner Solar System.”

Mission scientists plan to use the flyby to test some of the 11 instruments aboard ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), one of the European components of the mission, which travels to the innermost planet of the Solar System together with the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio) of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The two science orbiters are stacked on top of the ESA-made Mercury Transfer Module (MTM), with Mio sitting atop hidden behind a protective sunshield. The transfer module obscures the view of some of the MPO instruments, but the scientists expect to be able to obtain data from eight of the 11 science payloads. Mio’s view is mostly blocked by the sunshield, but some of its sensors will also be switched on during the flyby.

The operation, however, will be performed with limited personnel at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, where engineers will have to comply with social distancing rules presently in place all over Europe as a response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The Earth swing-by is a phase where we need daily contact with the spacecraft,” says Elsa Montagnon, BepiColombo Spacecraft Operations Manager at ESA. “This is something that we cannot postpone. The spacecraft will swing by Earth independently in any case.”

The coronavirus threat forces the team to work with minimal face to face interaction while ensuring all steps in the process are properly covered.

“During the critical two weeks prior to the closest approach, we need to upload safety commands to prepare the spacecraft for unexpected problems,” says Christoph Steiger, BepiColombo Deputy Spacecraft Operations Manager. “For example, we need to prepare the transfer module for the 34 minute-long eclipse when its solar panels will not be exposed to sunlight to prevent battery discharge.”

Operations can still be conducted as planned, he adds, but will require more effort and attention than in a normal situation.

ESA’s BepiColombo Project Scientist Johannes Benkhoff hopes that, despite the challenging circumstances, the science teams will be able to switch on the MPO instruments to test and calibrate them.

“For example, the PHEBUS spectroscope will use the Moon as a calibration target to then produce better data once at Mercury,” says Johannes. “We also want to make some measurements of the solar wind and its interaction with Earth’s magnetic field. The main purpose of having the instruments on at this stage, however, is testing and calibration. If we can use the data for some scientific investigation, it will be a bonus.”

BepiColombo also carries three GoPro-style ‘selfie’ cameras, mounted on the transfer module, that will be taking photographs as the spacecraft approaches Earth. The scientists activated the cameras in early March and took a few snaps of the Earth-Moon system as viewed by BepiColombo from its position hurtling towards the Earth.

“We will see the Earth approaching and getting bigger,” says Joe. “When it reaches the nearest point, we will take a few images, and then we are planning to capture a whole sequence of photographs over several hours looking at the Earth-Moon system as it gets smaller and smaller until we lose it completely.”

Frank Budnik, ESA’s BepiColombo Flight Dynamics manager, adds: “As long as all team members are healthy and the spacecraft continues to perform nominally, everything can proceed as planned.”

The Earth flyby on 10 April is only the first of nine gravity assist manoeuvres awaiting BepiColombo during its 7-year journey to Mercury. In October, the spacecraft will perform the first of two flybys at Venus. The final six orbit-tightening manoeuvres will use the gravity of BepiColombo’s destination, Mercury.

BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury in late 2025. The science mission will commence three months later, after Mio and the MPO separate from the transfer module and enter their respective target orbits. Together, the two orbiters will help scientists shed light on the evolution of Mercury, the least explored of the four rocky planets in the Solar System and the one closest to the Sun.

Learning about Mercury’s composition, the geological processes on its surface and the environment around it will help scientists answer some fundamental questions not only about Mercury, but also about the formation and evolution of the entire Solar System.

Amateur astronomers equipped with small telescopes will be able to observe BepiColombo during the flyby, if located in southern latitudes. Observers in southern Europe might be able to spot the spacecraft briefly. The best view, however, will only be possible from the southern hemisphere.

Source: European Space Agency

BepiColombo Lights Up Its Ion Engines...

ESA / ATG medialab

BepiColombo's First Routine Firing in Space (News Release)

On Monday this week, BepiColombo began its very first routine electric propulsion firing.

After meticulous testing of the spacecraft's four high-tech ion thrusters, the mission team have now fired up the spacecraft for its first thruster burn ‘arc’.

Travelling nine billion kilometers in total, BepiColombo will make nine flybys at Earth, Venus and Mercury, looping around the Sun 18 times.

To do this, the ESA/JAXA mission will be steered by 22 thruster burn arcs, each providing the same acceleration from less fuel compared to traditional, high-energy chemical burns that last for minutes or hours.

This first arc will last two months, during which BepiColombo’s electric blue ‘jet packs’ will steer the explorer on its interplanetary trajectory and optimise its orbit, ahead of its swing by of Earth in April 2020.

At 09:35 CET, before the thrusters began firing, BepiColombo was ‘slewed’ into the correct position. As its orientation shifted, the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna swivelled to maintain communication with ground stations on Earth, captured in this gif (below) taken by the monitoring camera #3.

Next, BepiColombo’s solar arrays were tilted to fully face the Sun, as full power is needed to power the ion thrusters.

At about 13:45 CET, BepiColombo began to fire. The team watched with concentration and relief as graphs showed the spacecraft was gaining momentum, as two of its thrusters went from the initial thrust level of 75 millinewtons (mN) up to 108 mN each.

BepiColombo’s maximum planned thrust level for the entire journey is 250 mN, with two thrusters each firing at 125mN. This is equivalent to 250 ants pulling the 4 tonne BepiColombo spacecraft all the way to the innermost planet of the Solar System!

Source: European Space Agency

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ESA

BepiColombo Is Now Headed to the First Rock from the Sun!

2018 ESA - CNES - Arianespace

At 6:45 PM, Pacific Daylight Time (9:45 PM, Eastern Daylight Time) yesterday, a European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana...sending the BepiColombo spacecraft on a 7-year journey to Mercury. A joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), BepiColombo will arrive at the planet in early December of 2025...but not before conducting six flybys of Mercury along the way. Comprising BepiColombo are three components: the Mercury Transfer Module (which will propel BepiColombo on its 7-year trip via four ion thrusters), ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (a.k.a. the MIO satellite). It is upon arrival at Mercury around December 5, 2025, that MIO will separate from MPO to enter its own orbit around the desolate world. The BepiColombo mission will last through May 1, 2027—and possibly through May 1, 2028 if it's granted an extended mission.


ESA / BepiColombo / MTM – CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Aboard the MIO satellite is a memory card bearing the names and messages of 6,494 people (including one by me), which were submitted online earlier this year. Just as an FYI, Japan allowed folks to send their names and messages to the Moon via the Kaguya orbiter in 2007, and it allowed folks to fly their names and messages to Venus via the IKAROS solar sail in 2010, and the Akatsuki spacecraft in 2015. So Japan is responsible for sending folks like me on a virtual journey to three planetary bodies in our solar system [my name is at Mars courtesy of NASA's Phoenix, Curiosity and MAVEN spacecraft (and the InSight lander next month, hopefully)]! Thanks JAXA. And Godspeed on your voyage, Bepi! Happy Saturday.




JAXA


JAXA


JAXA

BepiColombo Update: T-Minus 24 Hours Till Launch!

Astrium

24 hours from now, an Ariane 5 rocket carrying the BepiColombo spacecraft is set to launch towards planet Mercury from Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The exact time of lift-off is 6:45 PM, Pacific Daylight Time (9:45 PM, Eastern Daylight Time) on October 19. Once it is safely in space, BepiColombo will take a little over seven years to reach Mercury, where it will arrive in December of 2025. After entering orbit, BepiColombo will separate into two satellites—the European Space Agency's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's MIO spacecraft, respectively—that will study the 'First Rock from the Sun' (my own term) for up to three years. This duration of flight also includes an extended mission.

Godspeed, Bepi! The joint European and Japanese mission continues where NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft left off after completing its study of Mercury on April 30, 2015. Can't wait for MPO and MIO to expand our scientific knowledge of the First Rock seven years from now. Happy Thursday!


ESA - S. Corvaja

Europe and Japan's Joint Mission to Mercury Moves a Step Closer to Launch...

ESA / CNES / Arianespace / Optique video du CSG – J. Odang

BepiColombo Science Orbiters Stacked Together (News Release)

The two science orbiters of the joint ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission are connected in their launch configuration and the European science orbiter and transport module have been given the go-ahead to be loaded with propellants.

The mission completed its Qualification Acceptance Review in the last week, which confirms it is on track for its 19 October launch. The three-spacecraft mission is currently scheduled to launch on an Ariane 5 at 03:45 CEST (01:45 GMT) on 19 October, or 22:45 local time in Kourou on 18 October, with the launch window remaining open until 29 November.

Following the successful fuelling readiness review on 30 August, the chemical propellants – such as hydrazine – can be added to the European Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) and Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO).

“These important reviews represent further key milestone in our launch campaign, bringing us to the final stages of our launch preparations, while in the longer term enabling the journey and operations at Mercury,” says Ulrich Reininghaus, ESA’s BepiColombo project manager.

“With the fueling activities planned for 5–12 September, a technical point of no return will be reached. After mechanical stacking, final electrical health check and transfer to the final assembly building, the launch will be the next major event.”

The transfer module will use both ion propulsion and chemical propulsion, in combination with gravity assist flybys at Earth, Venus and Mercury to bring the two science orbiters close enough to Mercury to be gravitationally captured into its orbit.

There, MPO will use its small thrusters to deliver JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) into its elliptical orbit around Mercury, before separating and descending to its own orbit closer to the planet.

This month the two science modules were arranged in their launch configuration for the first time in over a year; the last occasion was at ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands during final testing before shipment to Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

The MTM will be integrated at the bottom of the stack once the propellant-loading activities have been completed. A test-run of the integration was already exercised last week with the unfueled modules. The sunshield that will protect the MMO from the Sun’s radiation on the seven year journey will also be added much closer to launch.

“The long journey to Mercury has not yet started, but I feel the two science orbiters already have a strong bond between them, thanks to the long history of this mission,” says Go Murakami, JAXA’s BepiColombo project scientist. “I believe they will achieve a very successful mission with their joint science measurements.”

MMO’s main science goals are to provide a detailed study of the magnetic environment of Mercury, the interaction of the solar wind with the planet, and the diverse chemical species present in the exosphere – the planet’s extremely tenuous ‘atmosphere’.

The MPO will focus more on surface processes and composition, and together with MMO, will help piece together the full picture of the interaction of the solar wind on the planet’s environment and surface. Together they will watch how this interaction at the surface feeds back into what is observed in the exosphere and how that varies both in time and location – something that can only be achieved with two spacecraft in such complementary orbits.

“Seeing the two BepiColombo science orbiters finally attached together and knowing that they will now stay in this configuration for the next seven years is quite emotional,” says Johannes Benkhoff, ESA’s BepiColombo project scientist. “It’s another strong indication that we will start our mission soon and I’m really looking forward to all the science measurements we have planned with instruments on these two orbiters.”

Source: European Space Agency

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ESA / CNES / Arianespace / Optique video du CSG – J. Odang

BepiColombo Update: Europe and Japan's Upcoming Mission to Mercury Gets a Launch Date!

Astrium

The International Mercury Exploration BepiColombo Launch Schedule (Press Release)

Below is the launch schedule for BepiColombo, a leading Japan-Europe mission to Mercury. BepiColombo consists of two spacecraft - JAXA's MIO, the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter and the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) of the European Space Agency (ESA). Both orbiters carried aboard Ariane 5 will cooperatively accomplish comprehensive observations of Mercury. Be informed of the following Ariane 5 launch schedule officially announced by Arianespace SA and ESA.

Launch Time and Date: 22:45, local time in French Guinea, October 19, 2018
(10:45, Japan Standard Time, October 19, 2018)
Reserved Launch Period: Through November 29, 2018
Location: Guiana Space Centre, Europe's spaceport in Kourou
Mission Overview: The International Mercury Exploration BepiColombo Mission and MIO

BepiColombo, an ESA-JAXA joint mission to explore Mercury, sends two spacecraft to orbit around Mercury for observations. Each is tasked with distinctive observation objects. MIO aims at elucidating the magnetic field and magnetosphere of Mercury. The MPO mission is observing the planet's surface and internal composition. JAXA is in charge of the development of the MIO spacecraft and controlling its operation at the target orbit because MIO's mission objectives lie in Japan's area of expertise. ESA controls BepiColombo launch and flight to Mercury and orbital insertions. The development and operation of the MPO is also part of the mission performed by ESA.

MIO and MPO are payload launched by the Ariane 5 spacecraft. After entering the planet's orbit, detached satellites are scheduled for approximately year-long observation mission, which both agencies will cooperatively engage in.

Source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Send Your Name to Mercury!

JAXA

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is currently holding a PR campaign where not only can you submit a name that might be chosen as the official moniker of its Mercury-bound spacecraft, the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), but you can also send your own name and a personal message that will be placed on a memory card aboard the space probe before it launches to the barren world six months from now. Click on the link below to take part in this exciting project:

Send your name and a message to the planet Mercury

The MMO is Japan's contribution to the European Space Agency's BepiColombo mission. Along with Europe's Mercury Planetary Orbiter, the MMO will launch to Mercury via an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana this October...and arrive at the closest planet to our Sun in December 2025. The deadline to submit an official name for MMO (I chose Larunda from Roman mythology as my submission) and provide your own name and message is this Monday, April 9 at 10:00 AM, Japan Time (which would be Sunday, April 8 at 6 PM, Pacific Daylight Time, here in California).

So hurry up and click on the link above (or the images above and below) to leave your own mark on Japan's Mercury-bound spacecraft! And while you're at it, click on this link to send your name towards the Sun itself as well...courtesy of NASA's Parker Solar Probe (which launches in July). That is all.


JAXA