Europe is ready to launch its first mercury mission

BepiColombo, which will become the first European Mercury Exploration Mission, is expected to be launched on 20 October.

The mission will take off from the Ariane 5 rocket from the European spaceport at Kourou and head for the smallest and deepest planet in our solar system. BepiColombo's mission is designed to study Mercury in detail. His observations and data will revolutionize our understanding of the planet.

BepiColombo is a joint initiative of the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA. The mission consists of three satellites that will carry two scientific orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbit (DFO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbit JAXA (MMO). Once the spacecraft has landed at Mercury, a number of scientific instruments will be activated. The instruments will capture images and measure the planet and its environment, from its composition to its interaction with the solar wind. The results will shed light on how mercury has formed and evolved over time.

Mercury is the least explored planet in our solar system. The planet is only slightly larger than the Moon and is made up of heavier materials. Mercury is closest to the sun and bypasses the fastest parent star of all the planets. The BepiColombo data will help scientists to reconstruct the story of Mercury.

BepiColombo is not the only spaceship to visit Mercury. NASA's MESSENGER probe also reached Mercury in 2008 and orbited the planet for four years before crashing on its heavy surface. The new ESA mission will study all aspects of Mercury during its mission and extend the scientific legacy of MESSENGER.

The researcher Bastien Brugger says. "With the launch of BepiColombo, we will have a brand new range of instruments to further research on Mercury's unique properties and better understand the structure and origin of the planet."