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TOKYO (AP) – European and Japanese space agencies have announced that an Ariane 5 rocket had allowed a spacecraft carrying two probes to enter orbit on Saturday for a joint mission to Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.
The European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced that the unmanned spaceship BepiColombo had successfully separated and had been orbited from French Guiana as planned to begin a seven-year trip to Mercury.
According to them, the spacecraft, named after the Italian scientist Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo, was in the right orbit and had sent the first signal after takeoff.
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ESA said that the $ 1.3 billion mission (1.3 billion dollars) was one of the most difficult in its history. The extreme temperatures of mercury, the intense gravitational pull of the sun and the burning solar radiation create infernal conditions.
The space shuttle BepiColombo will have to follow an elliptical trajectory involving an overflight of the Earth, two of Venus and six of Mercury, in order to be able to slow down before reaching its destination in December 2025.
Upon arrival, BepiColombo will release two probes – Bepi and Mio – which will independently study the surface and magnetic field of Mercury. The probes are designed to withstand temperatures of 430 degrees Celsius (806 F) on the solar side and -180 degrees Celsius (-292 F) in the shadow of Mercury.
The Bepi developed by ESA will operate on Mercury's internal orbit and the Mio of the JAXA will be on the outer orbit to collect data that would reveal the planet's internal structure, surface and its geological evolution.
Scientists hope to build on the knowledge gained by NASA's Messenger probe, which ended its mission in 2015 after a four-year orbit of Mercury. The only other spacecraft to visit Mercury is NASA's Mariner 10, which flew over the planet in the mid-1970s.
Mercury, which is only slightly larger than Earth's moon, has a massive iron core on which little is known. The researchers also hope to learn more about the formation of the solar system from the data collected by the BepiColombo mission.
"Beyond this difficult journey, this mission will bring back a huge scientific wealth," said Jan Wörner, ESA Director General, in a statement.
JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa, who had previously led the project, said: "We expect a lot of detailed observations from Mercury that will allow us to better understand the environment of the planet and, ultimately, the planet. origin of the solar system, including that of the Earth. "
This is the second recent cooperation between Europeans and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The JAXA's Hayabusa2 probe dropped a Franco-German rover on the Ryugu asteroid earlier this month.
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Jordans brought back from Berlin.
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