To summarize, due to the ion thruster issues ESA announced a few months ago, they have had to adapt BepiColombo’s trajectory. The fourth Mercury flyby, scheduled for Thursday night, will go to a lower altitude than previously planned for an extra boost. The 5th and 6th Mercury flybys will occur as planned in December 2024 and January 2025, but arrival at Mercury has been postponed roughly 11 months, from December 2025 to November 2026.
The upcoming flyby should be particularly interesting for magnetospheric and space environment studies, as it passes close to the north pole, where a magnetic cusp is located, which allows for lots of solar wind particles to reach the surface (i.e., the same process that creates aurora on Earth). Ten of the instruments on the two spacecraft will be taking data throughout the flyby, including cameras.
And the odds are that they will nail this whole mission with near perfection. It’s why we listen to scientists for sciency things … they really know what they are doing.
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To summarize, due to the ion thruster issues ESA announced a few months ago, they have had to adapt BepiColombo’s trajectory. The fourth Mercury flyby, scheduled for Thursday night, will go to a lower altitude than previously planned for an extra boost. The 5th and 6th Mercury flybys will occur as planned in December 2024 and January 2025, but arrival at Mercury has been postponed roughly 11 months, from December 2025 to November 2026.
The upcoming flyby should be particularly interesting for magnetospheric and space environment studies, as it passes close to the north pole, where a magnetic cusp is located, which allows for lots of solar wind particles to reach the surface (i.e., the same process that creates aurora on Earth). Ten of the instruments on the two spacecraft will be taking data throughout the flyby, including cameras.
>BepiColombo [launched into space](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/BepiColombo_blasts_off_to_investigate_Mercury_s_mysteries) in October 2018 and is making use of nine planetary flybys: [one at Earth](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/BepiColombo_Earth_flyby_in_images), [two at Venus](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/BepiColombo_flies_by_Venus_en_route_to_Mercury), and six at Mercury, to help steer itself into orbit around Mercury. Once in orbit, the main science phase of the mission can begin.
[ibid](https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/Fourth_Mercury_flyby_begins_BepiColombo_s_new_trajectory)
And the odds are that they will nail this whole mission with near perfection. It’s why we listen to scientists for sciency things … they really know what they are doing.