The European Space Agency ( ESA ) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( JAXA ) have successfully launch BepiColombo , their joint foreign mission to Mercury . The ballistic capsule successfully blasted off a few days ago from the Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana .
BepiColombo is comprised of two orbiter . JAXA designed the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter while ESA build the Mercury Planetary Orbiter . The goal of the joint mission is to take a kind of completing measure of the planet to reveal its internal body structure , how it interact with the solar wind , and new details about its surface and evolution .
" Launching BepiColombo is a huge milestone for ESA and JAXA , and there will be many great success to come , " Jan Wörner , ESA Director General , said in astatement . " Beyond make out the challenging journey , this mission will return a Brobdingnagian bounty of science . It is thanks to the international collaboration and the decades of efforts and expertness of everyone regard in the design and construction of this incredible political machine , that we are now on our way to investigating planet Mercury ’s mystery . "
The journeying to Mercury wo n’t be a straightforward one . The ballistic capsule will perform several gravity assist flybys in combination with solar electric propulsion to get into Mercury ’s electron orbit . It will exceed by our planet again in April 2020 , and then do two flybys of Venus and six of Mercury before it is captured by the sombreness of the smallest planet in belated 2025 .
" BepiColombo is one of the most complex interplanetary missions we have ever flown , " added Andrea Accomazzo , ESA Flight Director for BepiColombo . " One of the bad challenges is the Sun ’s enormous gravitational force , which make it unmanageable to rate a space vehicle into a unchanging orbit around Mercury . We have to forever brake to ensure a controlled evenfall towards the Sun , with the ion thruster providing the low thrust need over long durations of the cruise stage . "
This seven - year journey might be recollective but it wo n’t be jobless . Both orbiters will habituate their official document as they travel past Venus , hoard precious info about the major planet and its thick standard pressure . The foreign mission is not just versatile in its data collection , it ’s also as tough as it can be .
BepiColombo will experience temperature changes from -180 to 450 ° C ( -292 to 842 ° atomic number 9 ) . The JAXA orbiter will whirl every four irregular to avoid overheating , while the ESA one has a wide radiator to keep it coolheaded . The two spacecraft will be set on different range , which should deliver a unique understanding of the planet . The teams hope to distinguish how Mercury take form so nigh to the Sun and this could be applied to exoplanets as well .
