BepiColombo sheds module for final Mercury approach — SkimNews
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- BepiColombo separated from its Mercury Transfer Module on September 3 at around 1400 CEST; Doppler signals confirmed the separation by 1552 CEST, and the Mercury Planetary Orbiter's solar panels were already charging the spacecraft's batteries.
- The arrival is one year later than planned after problems with the Solar Electric Power (SEP) thruster system forced engineers to rethink the trajectory and extend the cruise phase.
- Orbit insertion around Mercury is scheduled for November 21, 2026, with JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO, aka Mio) to be released December 9–10 and ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter beginning its move to the final 480 x 1,500 km orbit a week later.
- Science operations are slated to begin in April 2027, with the initial mission planned for one Earth year (roughly four Mercury years) and a possible extension by another Earth year.
- BepiColombo has already performed six Mercury flybys since 2021, plus earlier Venus and Earth flybys, since its 2018 launch.
- The mission splits responsibilities between ESA and JAXA: ESA supplied the 1,230 kg, 3-axis-stabilized MPO and the MTM plus a sunshield for the MMO, while JAXA provided the 255 kg, spin-stabilized MMO/Mio (15 rpm, 1.8 m diameter).
Why it matters: A year-long delay from SEP thruster problems pushed arrival from December 2025 to November 2026, but orbit insertion is now roughly 11 weeks away. With science starting April 2027 and a potential two-Earth-year window covering about four Mercury years, ESA and JAXA are about to begin the first sustained dual-orbiter study of Mercury's magnetosphere, iron core, and magnetic field origin since MESSENGER.
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