- 1Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Göttingen, Germany (krupp@mps.mpg.de)
- 2IWF, Graz, Austria
- 3ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
- 4IGEP, TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
- 5LPP, Paris, France
- 6University of Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan
- 7IRAP, Universite Paul Sabatier,Toulouse, France
- 8INAF-IAPS, Rome, Italy
- 9ISAS-JAXA, Tokyo, Japan
- 10LPC2E, Orleans, France
- 11Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
The BepiColombo mission to Mercury consists of two spacecraft MPO and MIO and was launched in 2018. During the cruise phase towards the target the spacecraft performed its last close flyby near Mercury on 8 Jan 2025 (MSB6). This was the last flyby before going into orbit around the innermost planet at the end of 2026. We report on particle results from the Mass Spectrum Analyzer MSA on MIO and the Planetary Ion Camera PICAM onboard MPO together with magnetic field data MAG and hybrid simulation during this flyby. PICAM measured solar wind upstream and recorded the magnetospheric and magnetosheath plasma at various energies while MSA recorded the ion composition during the flyby including H+, He++, He+, Na+ and other heavy ions. Most of Na+ was seen near closest approach in the shadow of the planet which agrees well with AIKEF hybrid model results.
How to cite: Krupp, N., Fränz, M., Teubenbacher, D., Exner, W., Heyner, D., Hadid, L. Z., Varsani, A., Harada, Y., Aizawa, S., Andre, N., Milillo, A., Saito, Y., Delcourt, D., Prencipe, F., Krüger, H., Laky, G., Katra, B., Verdeil, C., Yokota, S., and Fiethe, B.: Observations of Mercury’s plasma environment along BepiColombo’s sixth swingby on 8 Jan 2025, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8338, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8338, 2025.
