The BepiColombo mission will make its first flyby of Mercury around 7:34 p.m. ET on Friday and pass within 124 miles of the planet's surface. During the flyby, BepiColombo will collect science data and images and send them back to Earth.
Once the Bepicolombo spacecraft approaches Mercury to begin orbit, the Mercury Transfer Module part of the spacecraft will separate and the two orbiters will begin circling the planet. BepiColombo will fly by the planet's nightside, so images during the closest approach wouldn't be able to show much detail.
The flyby has a timely occurrence on the 101st anniversary of Giuseppe"Bepi" Colombo's birthday, the Italian scientist and engineer who is the namesake of the mission. Colombo's work helped explain Mercury's rotation as it orbits the sun and enabled NASA's Mariner 10 spacecraft to perform three Mercury flybys rather than just one by using a gravity assist from Venus.
"We're really looking forward to seeing the first results from measurements taken so close to Mercury's surface," said Johannes Benkhoff, ESA's BepiColombo project scientist, in a statement."When I started working as project scientist on BepiColombo in January 2008, NASA's Messenger mission had its first flyby at Mercury. Now it's our turn.
The instruments on the two orbiters will investigate ice within the planet's polar craters, why it has a magnetic field, and the nature of the"hollows" on the planet's surface.
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