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A view of Earth captured by one of the MCAM selfie cameras aboard the European-Japanese mercury mission BepiColombo, when the spacecraft flew across the planet during its first and only flyby to Earth. The image was taken at 03:33 UTC on April 10, 2020, shortly before the closest approach, about 19,000 km (~ 12,000 miles) away. Credit: ESA / BepiColombo / MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
ESA / JAXA’s BepiColombo mission completed its first flyby on April 10, as the spacecraft reached less than 12,700 km from Earth’s surface at 06:25 CEST, directing its path to the final destination, Mercury. The images gathered just before the closest approach portray our planet glowing in the dark, during one of humanity’s most challenging times in recent history.
Launched in 2018, BepiColombo is on a seven-year journey to the smallest and most intimate planet orbiting the Sun, which contains important clues to the formation and evolution of the entire Solar System.
Today’s operation is the first of nine flybys that, along with the onboard solar propulsion system, will help the spacecraft reach its target orbit around Mercury. The next two flybys will take place in Venus and six others on Mercury
While the maneuver took advantage of Earth’s gravity to adjust the path of the spacecraft and did not require any active operations, such as firing thrusters, it included 34 critical minutes shortly after BepiColombo’s closest approach to our planet, when the spacecraft flew through the shadow of Earth.
This chart provides a simplified overview of the key operations that will take place before, during, and after the flyby, such as the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) warm-up on April 9 to prepare for the 34-minute eclipse phase following the closest approach, between 07:01 and 07:35 CEST, during which the spacecraft will be in the shadow of the Earth and therefore will not receive sunlight.
Various instruments and sensors on the two scientific orbiters that make up the mission, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), the Mercury Magnetosphere Orbiter (Mio), will light up during the flyby, as indicated on the right side of the graph. The data collected during the flyby includes images of the Moon and measurements of Earth’s magnetic field, which will be used to calibrate the instruments.
The three monitoring cameras mounted on the MTM are also programmed to take various “selfies” of the spacecraft with Earth approaching and departing.
Credit: ESA
“This eclipse phase was the most delicate part of the flyby, as the spacecraft passed through the shadow of our planet and did not receive direct sunlight for the first time after launch,” said Elsa Montagnon, Operations Manager at the BepiColombo Spacecraft for ESA.
To prepare for the scheduled eclipse, mission operators fully charged the spacecraft’s batteries and heated all components in advance, then closely monitored the temperature of all on-board systems during the dark period, between 07 : 01 and 07:35 CEST.
“It is always stressful to know that a spacecraft’s solar panels are not bathed in sunlight. When we saw that the solar cells had rebooted to generate electrical current, we learned that BepiColombo was finally out of Earth’s shadow and ready to go. continue your interplanetary journey, “added Elsa.
A few members of the BepiColombo flight control team manage to monitor the spacecraft’s flyby to Earth, maintain strict social distance, and take a selfie of the team at the same time. Credit: ESA
Space operations are never routine at ESA’s mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, but today’s flyby had an additional challenge. The maneuver, scheduled well in advance and impossible to postpone, had to be prepared with limited personnel on site, amid the social distancing measures adopted by the Agency in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic; but the restrictions had no impact on the success of the operation.
When BepiColombo passed our planet, most of the scientific instruments were turned on in ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter, one of the two scientific spacecraft that make up the mission. Several sensors were also active on the mission’s second component, JAXA’s Mercury Magnetosphere Orbiter, also known as Mio.
Scientists will use the data collected during the flyby, which includes images of the Moon and measurements of Earth’s magnetic field as the spacecraft passed rapidly, to calibrate instruments that, from 2026, will investigate Mercury to solve the mystery. of how the scorched planet formed.
“Today, of course, was very different from what we could have imagined just a couple of months ago,” said Johannes Benkhoff, ESA’s BepiColombo project scientist, who followed the operation from his home in the Netherlands, along with the many instrument scientists 16 teams that make up the mission, scattered between Europe and Japan.
“We are all happy that the flyby went well and that we were able to operate various scientific instruments, and we look forward to receiving and analyzing the data. These will also be useful to prepare for the next flyby, when BepiColombo will overtake Venus in October. “
“There is great interest in Japan in the BepiColombo mission. Therefore, after the successful flyby, we look forward to science on Venus and Mercury, ”said Go Murakami, BepiColombo project scientist at JAXA.
A sequence of images taken by selfie cameras at BepiColombo as it approached Earth before its flyby on April 9, 2020, less than a day before the closest approach. When BepiColombo approached the planet at a speed of more than 100,000 km / h, the distance to Earth decreased from 281,940 km to 128,000 km during the time the sequence was captured. Credit: ESA / BepiColombo / MTM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Our home from space
On April 9, before the flyby, and again today, just before approaching, BepiColombo monitoring cameras took a series of images of Earth from space, imagining our planet in these difficult times for humans in Europe and the world. .
“These selfies from space are humble, they show our planet, the common home we share, in one of the most troublesome and uncertain periods many of us have been through,” said Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science, who also followed the event. remotely from home in Spain.
“We are scientists who fly spaceships to explore the Solar System and observe the Universe in search of our cosmic origins, but before that we are human, taking care of each other and facing together a planetary emergency. When I look at these images, I remember the strength and endurance of humanity, the challenges we can overcome when we form a team, and I wish they bring you the same feeling of hope for our future. “
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