ESA’s BepiColombo Mission To Mercury Will Launch On October 19th
The European Space Agency (ESA) has planned the launch of the BepiColombo mission on the morning of October 19th, 2018. That is Europe’s first mission to Mercury, as reported by ESA. The takeoff is programmed for 1.45 GMT (3.45 CEST), corresponding to 22.45 local time (GFT) on October 18th in Kourou, the French Guiana, from where the rocket will depart.
The selected date is the first launch opportunity, but as some further unscheduled issues that might appear in Kourou have to be taken into consideration, the launch window will stay open through November 29th.
“We have had a great start to our launch campaign in Kourou and are on track to launch the mission in less than 90 days,” declared ESA’s Ulrich Reininghaus, the BepiColombo’s Director, earlier.
BepiColombo, a collaborative mission of ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), will be deployed on an Ariane 5 from the European launch pad in Kourou, the French Guiana, and will launch three spaceships that will set off on their way to Mercury.
The spaceships will fly with each other, as a transfer unit will carry the two scientific orbiters, the ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), using a hybrid of solar energy and electric thrust, and will be performing nine gravity flyovers to Earth, Venus, and Mercury.
The spaceships will make their first overflight over Mercury three years after their launch. A number of scientific devices will be activated during planetary flyovers, including the transfer module’s cameras which would be offering the opportunity to capture individual images of Mercury before the main scientific imaging camera becoming functional in the planet’s orbit.
Once the two scientific ships split up into their final orbits around Mercury, they will take additional measurements of the planet’s interior and atmosphere, from its deep core to its atmosphere’s interaction with the solar winds, to give a better insight into Mercury.
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