The BepiColombo mission set off from Earth in 2018 on a winding path to study the smallest and least understood planet in our Solar System with the aim of releasing the two probes into its orbit.
On Thursday, it began its arrival phase, described by the European Space Agency (ESA) as its “most operationally challenging planetary arrival sequences ever attempted”.
Mercury’s relatively tiny mass – it is only slightly bigger than the Moon – means its gravitational pull is extremely weak compared to the Sun, making it complex for spacecraft to approach the planet without ending up incinerated or lost in space.
“It’s a very ambitious mission,” Santa Martinez, the mission manager at ESA, told a press conference ahead of its arrival.
The spacecraft had to travel more than 10 billion kilometres (miles), executing a series of nine flybys, to speed up, slow down and perfect its trajectory.
The two probes, which are attached to each other, finally separated on Thursday from the transfer module that has propelled them – a crucial first step in the final approach.
It was the equivalent of “launching a new spacecraft. Only this spacecraft happens to be around a different planet,” explained Ignacio Tanco, ESA’s head of inner solar system mission operations, before the separation began.
ALL WENT TO PLAN
On Thursday, Mercury was some 63 million km from the Sun and 200 million km from Earth.
“At these distances… any real-time operation becomes impossible,” Tanco said, explaining there was about a 30-minute delay between checks being performed and commands being executed from the ground to the craft.
It means the spacecraft had to check and execute the separation autonomously – a “tricky business,” Tanco said.
But all went to plan.
The spacecraft autonomously cut the four mechanical struts connecting the orbiters to the module.
Spring mechanisms then gently pushed them away.
The separation took place at a speed of 40 centimetres (16 inches) per second, leaving the two entities relatively close given the vastness of space.
Due to the distance between the probes and Earth, the signal confirming the operation’s success reached the control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, nearly two hours later, at 1353 GMT, sparking rounds of applause and cheers.
“This is the best-case scenario: that the telemetry comes exactly at the moment we expect it,” said Elsa Montagnon, in charge of module operations at ESA.
“The spacecraft has completed its reconfiguration as expected,” she said happily.
The probes are due to come into Mercury’s orbit on November 21.
The next tricky phase will come on December 9 and 10, when the two probes separate into their respective orbits.
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