BepiColumbo: ESA/JAXA Mission to Mercury

[bystander]

BepiColombo: Two Orbiters Head to Mercury
French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) | 2018 Oct 17

The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO/Bepi, inner orbit) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO/Mio, outer orbit), in their elliptical polar orbits around Mercury. (Credit: ESA/ATG medialab)

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Known since Antiquity, Mercury has not yet delivered all its secrets. The international mission BepiColombo, scheduled to launch in the coming days, will study the planet's surface and compare its magnetic field with that of the Earth.

Apart from Earth, Mercury is the only terrestrial planet with its own magnetic field, and yet it has only been visited by two space missions so far. This is indeed no easy task: because it is so close to the Sun, a spacecraft that misses the Swift Planet's weak gravitational field will inevitably plunge towards the solar surface, heated to a fiery 5,500 °C.

The European and Japanese space agencies, ESA and JAXA, have therefore worked in close collaboration to ensure BepiColombo’s success. The mission, which comprises two orbiters, is scheduled to launch from Kourou, French Guiana, on the night of 19-20 October aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. After a seven-year journey and two flybys of Venus to benefit from a gravity assist, it will then survey Mercury’s surface, atmosphere and magnetosphere for two years, until 2027. ...

The BepiColombo mission comprises two orbiters carrying a science payload of nearly 100 kilograms. The first one, MPO (Bepi), will be dedicated to fully mapping the planet and studying its surface, internal structure and exosphere, while the second, MMO (renamed Mio), will study its magnetic environment. Once at their destination, Mio will be released first, followed by Bepi, which will be placed into the lowest orbit ever achieved around Mercury. ...

Innovative UK-led space technology takes off on BepiColombo
University of Leicester, UK | 2018 Oct 17

Journey to Mercury with Involvement from Bern
University of Bern | 2018 Oct 17

Strofio Will Measure Mercury's "Exosphere"
Southwest Research Institute | 2018 Oct 16

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Do you know anybody who was invited or who came to the funeral services with the initials SB?

Uh, Sonny Bono, Sandra Bullock, Steven Bochco, Seppe "Bepi".

Bono? Bullock? Bochco? Bepi? Wow. Man, you really get the big ones!

<<Giuseppe Colombo (Padua, October 2, 1920 – Padua, February 20, 1984), better known by his nickname Bepi Colombo, was an Italian scientist, mathematician and engineer at the University of Padua, Italy. Colombo studied the planet Mercury, and it was his calculations on how to get a spacecraft into a resonant orbit with Mercury with multiple fly-bys that led to the success of the Mariner 10 mission. Colombo also explained the spin-orbit resonance in Mercury's orbit, showing that it rotates three times for every two orbits around the sun.>>

[bystander]

BepiColombo Blasts Off to Investigate Mercury's Mysteries
ESA | Space Science | Science & Technology | BepiColumbo | 2018 Oct 20

BepiColombo liftoff. Credit: 2018 ESA-CNES-Arianespace

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The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury blasted off on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou at 01:45:28 GMT on 20 October on its exciting mission to study the mysteries of the Solar System’s innermost planet.

Signals from the spacecraft, received at ESA’s control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, via the New Norcia ground tracking station at 02:21 GMT confirmed that the launch was successful. ...

BepiColombo Mission: The Long Voyage to Planet Mercury
German Aerospace Center (DLR) | 2018 Oct 19

Mercury's Mysteries to Be Probed by British Science
UK Space Agency | 2018 Oct 19

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Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[bystander]

BepiColombo Is Ready for Its Long Cruise to Mercury
ESA | Space Science | Science & Technology | BepiColombo | 2019 Apr 05

BepiColombo in cruise configuration ~ Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

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Following a series of tests conducted in space over the past five months, the ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission has successfully completed its near-Earth commissioning phase and is now ready for the operations that will take place during the cruise and, eventually, for its scientific investigations at Mercury.

BepiColombo started its seven-year long journey to the Solar System's innermost planet on 20 October 2018, lifting off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

After completing the launch and early orbit phase on 22 October, an extensive series of in-orbit commissioning activities started. During this near-Earth commissioning phase, which was concluded on 16 December, the European and Japanese mission teams performed tests to ensure the health of BepiColombo's science instruments, its propulsion and other spacecraft platform systems.

On 26 March 2019, a review board confirmed that the overall capabilities and performance at the end of the near-Earth commissioning phase meet the mission requirements. ...

[bystander]

ESA to Conduct BepiColombo Flyby Amid Coronavirus Crisis
ESA | Space Science | Science & Technology | BepiColombo | 2020 Mar 30

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

BepiColombo’s Journey to Mercury ~ Credit: ESA

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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. ...

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 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. ...

[bystander]

Gravity Deceleration Maneuver Close
to Earth – with a View of the Moon
German Aerospace Center (DLR) | 2020 Apr 06

Earth as a Pivot ~ Credit: DLR, based on an ESA model

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Space exploration missions require precision of the highest order. In the early hours of 10 April 2020, the European Space Agency's (ESA) BepiColombo spacecraft will fly towards Earth at over 30 kilometres per second. At 06:25 CEST it will make its closest approach, over the South Atlantic, at an altitude of 12,677 kilometres. The spacecraft will then fly further towards the centre of the Solar System, travelling somewhat more slowly than when it arrived. This is a unique opportunity for planetary researchers and engineers at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Institute for Planetology at the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster to conduct a unique experiment, where they will study the Moon. As early as 9 April, with its Earth-facing side illuminated by the Sun, the Moon will be observed for the first time in the thermal infrared and examined for its mineralogical composition using the Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (MERTIS) instrument, developed and built at DLR. This will be possible because there will be no absorption by Earth's atmosphere. At Mercury, MERTIS will investigate the composition and mineralogy of Mercury’s surface and investigate the planet's interior. The scientific evaluation of the data will then be carried out jointly at participating institutes in Münster, Berlin, Göttingen and Dortmund, as well as several locations in Europe and the USA.

The main purpose of the Earth flyby is to slow down BepiColombo somewhat without expending propellant, in order to bring the spacecraft onto a trajectory towards Venus. During its flight towards Earth, on its spiral orbit through the inner Solar System, it will travel at a speed of 30.4 kilometres per second. As it moves away from Earth, BepiColombo be travelling at a speed of approximately 25 kilometres per second. With two subsequent close flybys of Venus (the first flyby will take place on 16 October 2020), BepiColombo will then be on a trajectory that will take it to the final destination of the six-year journey, an orbit around Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System. Due to the enormous gravitational field of the Sun and the limited transport capacity of the available launchers, planetary missions to the inner and outer Solar System can only be accomplished by following very complex trajectories. ...

[bystander]

Bepi­Colom­bo Con­tin­ues to 'Fall' on Its Tra­jec­to­ry To­wards Mer­cury
German Aerospace Center (DLR) | 2020 Oct 14

First Venus Fly­by of Bepi­Colom­bo on the Way to Mer­cury ~ Credit: ESA/ATG Medialab

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Approaching Venus from its day side, passing the planet, using its gravitational pull to slow down and continuing on its night side on course for Mercury: on Thursday 15 October 2020, at 05:58 CEST, ESA’s BepiColombo spacecraft will fly past Venus at a distance of approximately 10,720 kilometres and transfer some of its kinetic energy to our neighbouring planet in order to reduce its own speed. Two years post launch, the purpose of the manoeuvre is to lower BepiColombo’s orbit around the Sun towards the orbit of Mercury. The two orbiter spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) are part of a joint mission that will reach this point after another flyby of Venus in August 2021. Following six close flybys of Mercury, the mission will then enter orbit around the innermost planet at the end of 2025. For planetary researchers and engineers ... the Venus flyby is another opportunity to test BepiColombo’s MErcury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (MERTIS).

The flyby of Venus and the Earth-Moon-flyby that took place in spring 2020 are spaceflight manoeuvres used to test the functionality of some of the experiments on board both orbiters, and to calibrate the sensors and signal chains with the data obtained. ...

Venus Flyby on the Way to Mercury
University of Bern | 2020 Oct 14