Europe's BepiColombo Spacecraft To Attempt Its First Swing Past Mercury Tonight

A spacecraft bound for the planet Mercury will take a first look at the target tonight, when it makes its first-ever flyby of the small rocky world during an incredibly close encounter tonight. Space.com reports: The mission, called BepiColombo, is a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It is only the second mission in history sent to orbit Mercury, the smallest and innermost planet of the solar system. BepiColombo's flyby tonight (Oct. 1) will bring the spacecraft within just 124 miles (200 kilometers) of the surface of Mercury, the closest the probe will ever get to the planet during its mission. The first images from the encounter are expected to reach Earth early Saturday (Oct. 2) and will be the first close images of Mercury's scorched surface since the end of NASA's Messenger orbiter mission in 2015.

BepiColombo will make its closest approach to Mercury at 7:34 p.m. EDT (2334 GMT) today (Oct.1), ESA said in a statement. The spacecraft will then continue on its winding trajectory around the sun. This close pass is one of nine gravity-assist flybys, maneuvers that use the gravity of celestial bodies to adjust a spacecraft's trajectory, that BepiColombo needs to perform before it can enter its target orbit around the planet. This flyby, however, will take the spacecraft even closer to the scorched planet's surface, than its ultimate scientific orbit of 300 to 930 miles (480 to 1,500 kilometers). The $750 million BepiColombo mission will be able to make measurements of the environment around the planet and take images with its black and white 'selfie' cameras, which provide a 1024 by 1024 pixel resolution (comparable to an early-2000s flip phone.) [...] After tonight's close pass, it will take four more flybys of Mercury by BepiColombo before the spacecraft is in the correct position to finally enter the planet's orbit, which is set to happen in 2025.

Being a European probe

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

shouldn't it be called BepiDerrick?

Re:"BepiColombo"

[znrt]

Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo (October 2, 1920 in Padua – February 20, 1984 in Padua) was an Italian scientist, mathematician and engineer at the University of Padua, Italy.

Colombo studied the planet Mercury, and it was his calculations which showed how to get a spacecraft into a solar orbit which would encounter Mercury multiple times, using a gravity assist maneuver with Venus. Due to this idea, NASA was able to have the Mariner 10 accomplish three fly-bys of Mercury instead of one.[1] Mariner 10 was the first [2] spacecraft to use gravity assist. Since then, the technique has become common.

Colombo also explained the spin-orbit resonance in Mercury's orbit, showing that it rotates three times for every two orbits around the sun.

Re: "BepiColombo"

[JoeRobe]

Thanks for the info! I always figured it was two different scientists. Why didn't they just name it Bepi or Colombo?

Re:

[mridoni]

Why didn't they just name it Bepi or Colombo?

"Bepi" is a dialectal short form for Giuseppe, his actual first name, so Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo sounds something like Joseph "Joe" Smith.

Re:

[znrt]

indeed, but i would agree with the criticism of the name, the concatenation just looks weird and you can't even be sure how to spell the thing, isn't there supposed to be a silence between the 2 parts of the name? :-D

full ceremonial "Giuseppe Colombo", plain "Colombo", or the more familiar "Bepi Colombo" or even a minimalistic and affectionate "Bepi" are all much simpler, better alternatives imho.

Re:

[Ol Olsoc]

Thanks for the info! I always figured it was two different scientists. Why didn't they just name it Bepi or Colombo?

I got to watch this one launch, and had the same thought. The explanation made the chagrin a little better, but I agree. Either Columbo for gravitas, or Bepi for the cuteness. Either way, the back story would let us know who they were talking about.

In English, every time I hear the name Bepi, "Pippi Longstockings" comes to mind.

First image available

[SrmL]

First image: https://www.esa.int/Science_Ex... [esa.int]

incredible navigation

[v1]

Mercury is "hard" because it requires so much of a change both in trajectory and speed to get there, and then once you get there, you've got to find a way to slow down to get captured into orbit (and Mercury's pretty small, which just makes that more difficult)

It's akin to playing Plinko by tossing a half-court shot to the board, and needing to land in the center slot when it's done bouncing around on the board. The number of calculations, and the precision required for ALL of them, is just mind-boggling.

much respect!

Re: incredible navigation

[JoeRobe]

Also, staying near Mercury is hard in general due to heat. They are going through a lot of effort to keep their solar panels at a sharp angle to prevent overheating, and they also need to keep their cameras cold. Not a trivial problem!

Re:

[v1]

Have we ever put a lander there? I know we've been to Venus a few times, and a combination of the pressure and temperature there (at the surface) is downright brutal on landers. (hot enough to melt lead, iirc) I have no idea what the surface conditions are like on Mercury?

Re: incredible navigation

[JoeRobe]

I believe the 3 major missions to Mercury are Mariner 10, Messenger, and BepiColombo. No landers. I do wonder about the feasibility of landing near a pole, where I presume temperatures and temperature variation would be less dramatic.

Re:

[v1]

I believe the 3 major missions to Mercury are Mariner 10, Messenger, and BepiColombo. No landers. I do wonder about the feasibility of landing near a pole, where I presume temperatures and temperature variation would be less dramatic.

Thanks for the reminder there. Mercury is close enough to the sun to be tidally locked, so the "shade" side of mercury would probably be the mildest place to land if anyone wants to try. Normally the shade side is too cold (think the Moon) but I'd image Mercury is just too cl

Re: incredible navigation

[JoeRobe]

It's tidally locked but in a near 3:2 resonance. 3 rotations for every 2 orbits. So all sides do get sun eventually (although those are some long days).

The poles should still be a good bet, to get some sun for power but not have to shed so much heat. Of course if you accidentally land in a crater you'll be in shade all the time and be screwed. So maybe there are some intermediate locations of low heat but enough solar flux to keep powered.

Re:

[Berkyjay]

and Mercury's pretty small, which just makes that more difficult

Fun fact, Mercury has the same gravity strength as Mars.

Re:

[v1]

I thought it was smaller? (diameter) I assume similar gravity would then be due to a denser material, maybe just the iron core is all that's left of what may have once been a more varied composition planet?

Re:

[Berkyjay]

Correct, Mercury has less mass but is more dense than Mars. That less mass is in a smaller area than Mars which is what gives Mercury it's higher gravity.

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/pl... [nasa.gov]

1024 Ã-- 1024 black and white

[xenog]

I will file a petition to the ESA requesting that every future spacecraft must be equipped with multiple high-resolution cameras capable of generating sharp images meant to be used as computer desktop wallpapers for the benefit of all members of the Homo Computatis species.