After 8 Years In Transit, BepiColombo Reaches Mercury For Epic Close-Up
The joint European and Japanese BepiColombo Mercury mission that left Earth some eight years ago has finally entered its arrival phase, shedding its propulsion module to begin a months-long orbital insertion of its two science orbiters.
The jettisoning of the Mercury Transfer Module comes as a relief for this joint endeavor between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Launched in October 2018, the mothership has logged over six billion miles, and to prevent being pulled into the Sun's gravitational draw, ground controllers executed nine gravitational assist flybys, utilizing Earth, Venus, and Mercury itself, alongside solar-electric propulsion to continuously slow the probe. Flight operators at ESA’s control center in Darmstadt, Germany confirmed normal operations after acquiring the post-separation signal, leaving the remaining spacecraft stack on course for capture by Mercury's gravity.
BepiColombo’s capture sequence relies on a technique known as weak stability boundary capture to...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to hothardware.com. To see the full text click HERE
