BepiColombo Spacecraft Launch Will Kick Off Seven-Year Mercury Mission

The European Space Agency is preparing to launch the BepiColombo spacecraft as part of a mission to study Mercury. The ESA has been preparing for the launch for weeks, including a series of rehearsals that took place earlier this month. The spacecraft is currently scheduled to launch from French Guiana at 9:45PM ET tonight.

The BepiColombo is a joint mission between the ESA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); it'll be Europe's first mission to Mercury, the agency says. Two orbiters will be involved in this process, JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) and ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO).

The ESA says the BepiColombo mission will be among the most "intricate" of trips every managed by the agency's ESOC mission control center. The team began practicing in 12-hour shifts to rehearse the spacecraft's launch and initial processes, among other things. Different potential scenarios were practiced, as well.

In its most recent update, the ESA shared an image of the BepiColombo on a launchpad at the Spaceport in Kourou. Assuming everything goes according to plan, the space agencies expect the spacecraft to arrive at Mercury in 2025, where it will then spend a year or longer gathering data on the planet, including its composition and density.

Among other things, the BepiColombo mission will make nine planetary flybys, including a circle around Earth, two of them around Venus, and then half a dozen around Mercury. The ESA will be livestreaming the BepiColombo launch for anyone to watch here.

SOURCE: ESA 1