At 06:59 Central European time on January 8, the BepiColombo spacecraft successfully performed its sixth flyby of Mercury, the innermost planet in the solar system. It's a “gravity assist maneuver,” a move that uses Mercury's gravitational pull to alter the trajectory of the BepiColombo vehicle, which will bring it into orbit around the planet by the end of 2026.
BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to study the composition of Mercury. The vehicle, which consists of two probes—ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter—launched in the fall of 2018 and previously orbited the sun.
When it approaches Mercury again, the vehicle will separate, and the two probes will head into their assigned polar orbits. BepiColombo's scientific work is scheduled for early 2027, when probes will seek information on how the planet formed and whether some of its craters contain water in the form of ice.
Until then, we'll have to make do with the details contained in these three images taken by the vehicle on its most recent flight.
