Fact Sheet
BepiColombo is Europe's first mission to Mercury. It will set off in October 2018 on a journey to the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in our Solar System. When it arrives at Mercury in late 2025, it will endure temperatures in excess of 350 °C and gather data during its 1 year nominal mission, with a possible 1-year extension. The mission comprises two spacecraft: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). BepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), executed under ESA leadership. Mission ObjectivesBepiColombo has been designed to provide the measurements necessary to study and understand the composition, geophysics, atmosphere, magnetosphere and history of Mercury. In particular, the mission has the following scientific objectives:
Mission NameBepiColombo is named after Professor Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920-1984) from the University of Padua, Italy, a mathematician and engineer of astonishing imagination. He was the first to see that an unsuspected resonance is responsible for Mercury's habit of rotating on its axis three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun. He also suggested to NASA how to use a gravity-assist swing-by of Venus to place the Mariner 10 spacecraft in a solar orbit that would allow it to fly by Mercury three times in 1974-5. ESA's Science Programme Committee decided at its meeting in Naples in 1999 to name the Mercury cornerstone mission in honour of Giuseppe Colombo's achievements. SpacecraftThe BepiColombo mission is based on two spacecraft: the ESA-led Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), a three-axis stabilised and nadir pointing spacecraft with an instrument suite of 11 experiments and instruments, and the JAXA-led Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), a spinning spacecraft carrying a payload of five experiments and instruments. A summary of the spacecraft characteristics is given in the table below.
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Date | Mission event |
October 2018 | Launch |
13 April 2020 | Earth flyby |
16 October 2020 | First Venus flyby |
11 August 2021 | Second Venus flyby |
2 October 2021 | First Mercury flyby |
23 June 2022 | Second Mercury flyby |
20 June 2023 | Third Mercury flyby |
5 September 2024 | Fourth Mercury flyby |
2 December 2024 | Fifth Mercury flyby |
9 January 2025 | Sixth Mercury flyby |
5 December 2025 | Arrival at Mercury |
14 March 2026 | MPO in final orbit |
1 May 2027 | End of nominal mission |
1 May 2028 | End of extended mission |
Operations Centre
Ground control: ESA is responsible for the overall mission design, and for the operation of the composite spacecraft up to the insertion of the MPO and MMO into their orbits. During the cruise, the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, will coordinate the operation of the full composite spacecraft by using the Cebreros 35 m antenna in Spain. The ISAS/JAXA Sagamihara Space Operation Centre, using the Usuda 64 m antenna (Japan), will take over the operation of the MMO once it is in orbit around Mercury, while ESOC will remain in charge of the MPO spacecraft.
Science operations: ESA is responsible for the mission and scientific operation of the MPO. The BepiColombo Science Operation Centre will be at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Villafranca, near Madrid, Spain. It will define and coordinate the scientific observations, and assist the teams in operating their instruments.