BepiColombo sends his first selfie from the space

"Bepi is doing well, all systems are functioning nominally and are fully operational," reports Susanne Fugger (pictured in the foreground) of Airbus' ESOC Space Operations Center Darmstadt in a press release. She leads one of two Airbus teams from Immenstaad, who badist satellite operators from the European Space Agency (ESA) at the start of the mission at Mercury. Since the successful start on Saturday morning, the first major commissioning sections of the satellite badociation have been successfully completed. Thus, the solar wings, with a range of 32 meters, ran successfully (first picture of space, right) and provide energy. Mobile antennas needed for communication and the provision of scientific data have also been successfully developed. "Great success after twelve years of hard work," says Fugger. This remains exciting for the next nine and a half years when BepiColombo then sends scientific data and images of its flight to and from Mercury. BepiColombo is a joint project of ESA and the Japanese space agency JAXA, developed and built by Airbus – also in Immenstaad. It is also Mercury's first European mission, the smallest and least explored planet in the inner solar system, and the first mission initiated by two probes that will simultaneously perform complementary measurements of Mercury's dynamic environment. An Ariane 5 launcher successfully launched BepiColombo on Saturday morning. At Airbus, up to 250 engineers, including 100 at Immenstaad, had worked for Bepi. Photos: Airbus