The BepiColombo spacecraft is about to make its first Mercury flyby
The BepiColombo mission to Mercury will pass within about 200 kilometres of the surface of Mercury in October, where it will measure the planet’s magnetic field and exosphere
By Will Gater
Artist’s content of the BepiColombo spacecraft astatine Mercury Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab; Mercury: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
The European and Japanese ngo BepiColombo volition marque a flyby of the star system’s inner-most satellite adjacent month, diving to conscionable 200 kilometres supra the aboveground of sun-scorched Mercury.
The spacecraft, which is specially engineered to withstand the precocious temperatures adjacent our star, volition cod information and images during the pass, making its closest attack to Mercury – known arsenic peri-herm – connected 1 October.
This volition beryllium “the archetypal of six flybys of Mercury aimed astatine reducing BepiColombo’s velocity,” says Elsa Montagnon …
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