Spacecraft bound for Mercury faces ‘tricky’ arrival
AFP | Paris
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A spacecraft carrying European and Japanese probes will complete an eight-year journey to arrive at Mercury yesterday, while still facing high-risk manoeuvres to study the Sun-scorched planet.
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.
But first the spacecraft must begin the months-long arrival phase, described by the European Space Agency (ESA) as its “most operationally challenging planetary arrival sequences ever attempted”.
“It’s a very ambitious mission. Mercury is a challenging destination… because of the extreme environment so close to the Sun,” Santa Martinez, the mission manager at ESA, told a press conference ahead of its arrival.
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.
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