Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter on top of Mercury Planetary Orbiter
Date: 23 May 2017
Satellite: BepiColombo
Depicts: Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter
Location: European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, the Netherlands
Copyright: ESA–C. Carreau, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
A portion of JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) can be seen on top of ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) in this view of the BepiColombo spacecraft at ESA's technical centre in May 2017.
One and a half of the MMO's eight solar panels can be seen, with part of the high-gain antenna (the white dish) at the top.
The MPO is seen with the radiator to the far left; on the side facing the camera the black protrusion is the low-gain antenna. Underneath are two science instruments from the SERENA instrument package. The white circular instrument is SERENA-PICAM, an ion mass spectrometer acting as an all-sky camera for charged particles transported through Mercury's environment. The cone-shaped instrument below is SERENA-MIPA, an ion analyser looking at how solar wind and magnetospheric ions precipitate towards the surface.
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