At 06:59 Central On January 8, European time, the BepiColombo spacecraft successfully performed its sixth flyby of Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System. This was a “gravity-assist maneuver,” a move that used Mercury’s gravitational pull to change the course of the BepiColombo vehicle, which will bring it into orbit around the planet by the end of 2026.
BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will study the composition of Mercury. The vehicle, which consists of two probes – ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – was launched in autumn 2018 and previously orbited the Sun.
When it approaches Mercury again, the vehicle will separate and the two probes will move towards their dedicated polar orbits. BepiColomb’s scientific work is then scheduled to begin in 2027, when the probes will search for information on how the planet formed and whether any of its craters contain water in the form of ice.
Until then, we’ll have to make do with the details contained in these three images taken by the vehicle during its last flyby.