BepiColombo third Mercury flyby June 19, 2023
BepiColombo will make its third flyby of the planet Mercury on June 19, 2023. The spacecraft will sweep closest to Mercury at 19:34 UTC (2:34 p.m. CDT) that day. Photos to come back quickly!
BepiColombo is a joint Mercury mission, launched in October 2018 by the European Area Company (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA). For the previous a number of years, our sun’s inner planets have been giving BepiColombo gravity assists, wanted to allow the spacecraft to attain a steady orbit round Mercury.
BepiColombo is because of enter Mercury’s orbit on December 5, 2025. Within the meantime, there might be three extra flybys after Monday’s shut method.
Why the gravity assists?
Why can’t BepiColombo simply shoot on over to Mercury and go into orbit round it? It will possibly’t, as a result of Mercury is so close to the sun.
The flyby maneuvers will maintain the craft from being pulled into the sun’s gravity well. With one Earth flyby, two Venus flybys, and 6 eventual Mercury flybys, the spacecraft will lose sufficient power that Mercury will seize it in its orbit. That’s proper, we mentioned “lose.” We sometimes consider a gravity assist as a solution to enhance a spacecraft’s power. However a gravity help can both velocity up or decelerate a spacecraft. Or it will probably merely change a craft’s path.
ESA flight dynamics professional Frank Budnik defined extra about this third flyby:
As BepiColombo begins feeling Mercury’s gravitational pull, will probably be touring at 3.6 km/s with respect to the planet. That’s simply over half the velocity it approached with throughout the earlier two Mercury flybys.
And that is precisely what the purpose of such occasions is. Our spacecraft started with far an excessive amount of power as a result of it launched from Earth and, like our planet, is orbiting the sun. To be captured by Mercury, we have to decelerate, and we’re utilizing the gravity of Earth, Venus and Mercury to just do that.
Tough maneuvering
Although BepiColombo’s flight to Mercury was meticulously mapped upfront, controllers must make corrections throughout the seven years it’ll take the spacecraft to get there. In Could, mission management carried out a course correction that in any other case would have put BepiColombo 15,000 miles (24,000 km) too removed from Mercury and on the fallacious facet of the planet.
Santa Martinez Sanmartin, ESA’s BepiColombo mission supervisor, defined extra concerning the strategies used to get BepiColombo in orbit:
That is the primary time scientists are utilizing the complicated solar electrical propulsion methodology to get a spacecraft to Mercury. And it represents an enormous problem throughout the remaining a part of the cruise phase. We now have already tailored our operations idea to have further communications passes with our floor stations, enabling us to get well quicker from thruster interruptions and to enhance orbit willpower.
And all of the whereas that is working with communications delays of greater than 10 minutes because of the time it at the moment takes gentle alerts to journey between Earth and the spacecraft.
As ESA said, probably the most demanding a part of its journey remains to be to come back:
After this flyby, the mission will enter a really difficult a part of its journey to Mercury, steadily growing using solar electrical propulsion via further propulsion durations referred to as ‘thrust arcs’ to repeatedly brake in opposition to the big gravitational pull of the sun. These thrust arcs can final from a number of days as much as two months, with the longer arcs interrupted periodically for navigation and maneuver optimization.
This difficult journey is likely one of the causes that Mercury is likely one of the least explored planets in our solar system.
When will we see the photographs from the third Mercury flby?
BepiColombo will get as shut as 146 miles (236 km) from Mercury’s floor throughout this flyby. Nonetheless, closest method might be previous the unlit portion of Mercury, so scientists received’t seize any pictures till a bit later. At about 13 minutes previous closest method, when the spacecraft is 1,143 miles (1,840 km) away, it’ll attain the illuminated a part of Mercury. Then it’ll start sending again black-and-white pictures, which can embody a part of the craft itself. A Mercurial selfie, if you’ll. ESA mentioned the photographs ought to be out there by the afternoon of June 20.
You’ll be able to comply with together with the #MercuryFlyby at these Twitter accounts: @esaoperations, @bepicolombo, @ESA_Bepi, @ESA_MTM and @JAXA_MMO.
Testing the devices
The workforce makes use of these flybys as an opportunity to check a few of the devices. Throughout Monday’s flyby, the magnetic, plasma and particle monitoring devices will pattern the surroundings. Challenge scientist Johannes Benkhoff mentioned:
Gathering knowledge throughout flybys is extraordinarily precious for the science groups to test their devices are functioning appropriately forward of the primary mission. It additionally supplies a novel alternative to match with knowledge collected by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft throughout its 2011–2015 mission at Mercury from complementary places across the planet not normally accessible from orbit. We’re delighted to have already got knowledge printed based mostly on our earlier flybys that generated new science outcomes, which makes us much more excited to get into orbit!
Backside line: BepiColombo could have its third flyby of Mercury on June 19, 2023. The spacecraft will ultimately go into orbit across the closest planet to the sun.
