After one year of NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft orbiting the innermost planet many new and surprising results have been discovered. This session will highlight the latest results on Mercury from MESSENGER observations obtained from measurements in orbit. The session will also look ahead to observations still to come and to the science and instrumentation of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo to be launched in 2014. Papers addressing the planet’s geology, surface composition, topography, gravity and magnetic fields, exosphere, magnetosphere, and solar-wind interaction, ground-based observations, laboratory measurements, or theoretical developments relevant to planetary processes are welcomed