Exploring planetary space weather and inner heliosphere by BepiColombo/Mio: updates of cruise science

The Mio spacecraft for the BepiColombo mission was successfully launched on 20 October 2018. BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury in the end of 2025, and it has 7-years cruise with the heliocentric distance range of 0.3-1.2 AU. The long cruise phase also includes 9 planetary flybys: once at the Earth, twice at Venus, and 6 times at Mercury. The Mio spacecraft has a complete package of plasma instruments, a spectral imager for the exosphere, and a dust monitor. Even though the Mio spacecraft is surrounded by the Mio’s sunshield and observation capabilities of some instruments are constrained during the cruise phase, it still includes many important opportunities to investigate the inner heliosphere and planetary environments by Mio. Here we present the initial results of the first Earth flyby and cruise observations, and updated operations plans during the cruise phase.