First thermal tests for BepiColombo
Date: 17 January 2011
Copyright: ESA
ESA's BepiColombo is a dual spacecraft mission to Mercury and is conducted in partnership with Japan. It is a highly challenging mission and is due to be launched by Soyuz in 2014.
The programme has just passed a significant milestone with the completion of the first crucial thermal tests at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre technical & research centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands.
ESA's planetary missions can go from one extreme to another: whilst the Rosetta comet probe pursues its journey in the cold depths of deep space, its solar panels having to retain the weak rays of our distant Sun, BepiColombo will be braving the infernal heat around the innermost planet.
This A & B-Roll describes the measures taken to preserve the spacecraft and includes interviews with ESA Project Manager Jan van Casteren, two of his team's engineers, and ESA Project Scientist Johannes Benkhoff. The B-Roll interviews are in English, Dutch, Italian and German.