Europe and Japan prepare a spacecraft for a 7-year trip to Mercury
Europe and Japan prepare a spacecraft for a 7-year trip to Mercury
BERLIN - The final preparations were underway on Friday for the launch of a joint mission of the European and Japanese space agencies to send twin probes to Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun.
An Ariane 5 rocket is scheduled to take the BepiColombo spacecraft to orbit French Guiana on Friday night, after which it will begin its seven-year journey to the innermost planet of the solar system.
The European Space Agency says the BepiColombo mission of 1,300 million euros ($ 1,500 million) is one of the most challenging in its history. The extreme temperatures of Mercury, the intense gravity of the Sun and the scorching solar radiation create hellish conditions.
The ship will have to follow an elliptical path that involves a flyby of the Earth, two of Venus and six of Mercury so that it can slow down enough before reaching its destination in December 2025.
The new electric ion thrusters will help push the spacecraft, named after the Italian scientist Giuseppe 'Bepi' Colombo, into the correct orbit.
When it arrives, BepiColombo will launch two probes, Bepi and Mio, that will independently investigate the surface and magnetic field of Mercury. The probes are equipped with special insulation to cope with temperatures ranging from 430 degrees Celsius (806 Fahrenheit) on the side to the Sun and -180 degrees Celsius (-292 Fahrenheit) in the shadow of Mercury.
The scientists hope to take advantage of the knowledge acquired by NASA's Messenger probe, which ended its mission in 2015 after a four-year Mercury orbit. The first spacecraft to visit Mercury was NASA's Mariner 10, which flew over the planet in the mid-1970s.
Mercury, which is only slightly larger than Earth's moon, has a massive iron core of which little is known. The researchers also hope to learn more about the formation of the solar system from the data collected by the BepiColombo mission.
It is the second recent cooperation between Europeans and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
The JAXA Hayabusa2 probe dropped a German-French rover on the asteroid Ryugu earlier this month.
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Launch of Livestream of BepiColombo: http://bit.ly/BepiLive
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