At 06:59 Central European time time on January 8, the BepiColombo spacecraft successfully performed its sixth flyby of Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system. This was a “gravity assist maneuver,” a move that used Mercury’s gravitational pull to alter the BepiColombo vehicle’s course, which will bring it into orbit around the planet by the end of 2026.
BepiColombo is a joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will study the composition of Mercury. The vehicle, consisting of two probes—ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter—was launched in the fall of 2018 and had previously been orbiting the sun.
When it approaches Mercury again, the vehicle will separate, and the two probes will head for their dedicated polar orbits. BepiColombo’s scientific work is then scheduled for early 2027, when the probes will look for information on how the planet was formed and whether some of its craters contain water in the form of ice.
Until then, we will have to make do with the details contained in these three images taken by the vehicle during its most recent flyby.